FALLACY 


ANDREW  MACPHAIL 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^p  t\)t 

^amc  9[tit!)or 

ESSAYS   IN 

PURITANISM, 

1905 

THE  VINE 

DF  SIBMAH, 

1906 

ESSAYS   IN 

POLITICS, 

1909 

ESSAYS   IN 

FALLACY, 

1910 

ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 


ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 


BY 


ANDREW   MACPHAIL 


LONGMANS,  GREEN   AND   CO. 
FOURTH  AVENUE  &  30TH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 

LONDON,   BOMBAY,  AND   CALCUTTA 
1910 


COPYRIGHT,    I9IO,    BY   ANDREW   MACPHAIL 


NOTE 

The  Essays  which  are  contained  in  this  book  are 
addressed  immediately  to  the  woman,  the  pro- 
fessor, and  the  theologian,  —  three  persons  who 
have  much  in  common,  the  one  with  the  other.  The 
Essay  with  which  the  book  begins  has  arisen  out 
of  a  series  of  articles  contributed  to  "  The  Specta- 
tor." Upon  that  occasion  the  conclusions  set  forth 
were  accepted  in  certain  quarters  as  being  only 
partially  true,  especially  by  persons  who  had  not 
read  them.  Also,  the  limit  of  space  imposed  by 
periodical  publication  compels  a  condensed  form 
of  statement,  and  does  not  permit  of  that  expanse 
of  writing  and  wealth  of  illustration  by  which  a 
free  asperity  of  expression  may  be  obtained,  and 
full  conviction  enforced.  The  exposition  of  the 
psychology  of  the  suffragette  in  the  second  paper 
is,  I  think,  sufficiently  obvious,  and  does  not  require 
further  comment.  The  fallacy  in  theology  was 
expounded  in  the  presence  of  an  Inter-denomi- 
national Conference  of  Ministers  with  so  cheer- 
ful acceptance  that  I  am  induced  to  present  the 
interpretation  of   this  recondite  and  perplexing 


vi  NOTE 

matter  in  a  more  elaborate  form.  In  the  Essay  on 
Education  I  am  on  safer  ground,  although  long 
contemplation  has  deprived  me  of  that  freshness 
of  perception  with  which  I  approached  the  pre- 
vious themes.  With  fine  subtlety  of  instinct,  he 
who  instils  intellectual  doubts  has  always  been 
branded  as  "the  enemy  "  ;  and  yet,  in  defence,  I 
beg  leave  to  put  forward  to  the  persons  for  whom 
this  book  is  intended  the  plaintive  enquiry  which 
the  Apostle  addressed  to  the  Galatians:  "-4m  / 
become  an  enemy  because  I  speak  the  truth  f^^ 

A.  M. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  American  Woman        ....       1 
II.  The  Psychology  of  the  Suffragette  .         .         55 

III.  The  Fallacy  In  Education   .         .         .         .101 

IV.  The  Fallacy  in  Theology  .         .         .191 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN 

The  old-fashioned  American  novelist  who  was 
pressed  for  an  explanation  of  the  waywardness  of 
his  heroine  always  found  it  in  the  fact  that  she 
was  born  of  a  French  mother.  The  English  writer 
of  early  romance  invariably  attributed  the  vagaries 
of  his  heroines  to  the  circumstance  that  they  grew 
up  without  mothers  at  all. 

The  second  of  these  observations  was  originally 
made,  I  believe,  by  Francis  Jeffrey  in  the  "  Edin- 
burgh Review,"  and  has  been  confirmed  more 
recently  by  Mr.  AUport  and  Mr.  Mount  in  the 
"  Spectator."  So  shall  we  explain  the  unsophis- 
ticated Miranda,  the  ingenuous  Desdemona,  the 
vivacious  Rosalind,  and  the  wayward  Jessica.  The 
ostentatious  prudery  of  Pamela,  the  sprightly 
courage  of  Sophia  Western,  the  dourness  of  Jane 
Eyre,  the  wrongheadedness  of  Dorothea  Brooke, 
the  obvious  virtues  of  Flora  Maclvor,  Rebecca, 
Rowena,  Julia  Mannering,  Di  Vernon,  Jeanie 
Deans,  Amy  Robsart,  Alice  Lee,  Catherine 
Glover,  —  indeed,  of  all  Scott's  heroines  with  the 
single  exception  of  Lucy  Ashton,  and  all  Shake- 
speare's witli  the  exception  of  Juliet,  —  are  trace- 


4  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

able  to  the  circumstance  that  they  were  mother- 
less. 

The  foreign  novelist  of  to-day  finds  quite  an- 
other explanation,  not  of  the  virtues, — for  nov- 
elists no  longer  find  virtuous  heroines  interesting, 
—  but  of  the  caprice  of  his  heroine  in  the  fact 
that  she  is,  or  is  descended  from,  an  "  American 
Woman,"  as  he  understands  the  term.  And  so, 
in  roundabout  fashion,  we  have  got  to  our  subject 
at  last.  All  novels  are  written  for  women  except 
the  few  which  are  worth  writing.  Time  was 
when  their  characters  achieved  distinction  by 
reason  of  the  temptations  which  they  resisted 
rather  than  by  the  concessions  which  they  made. 
The  English  heroine  resists  or  yields  to  her  desire 
for  place ;  her  French  sister  is  impelled  by  love ; 
it  is  luxurious  idleness  alone  which  appeals  to  the 
"  American  Woman  "  of  foreign  fiction.  In  liter- 
ature and  life  this  is  the  clue  to  her  actions. 

This  prodigy,  which  looms  so  portentous,  will 
bear  some  investigation.  The  term  itself,  whilst 
it  has  a  certain  definitive  value,  is  also  capable 
of  wide  extension  in  time  and  place.  The  mani- 
festation is  not  confined  to  the  American  continent, 
nor  even  to  the  United  States.  Indeed  it  is  en- 
tirely inaccurate  as  a  description  of  the  mothers, 
wives,  and  daughters  of   the  average  American 


THE   AMERICAN   WOMAN  5 

man ;  and  it  will  be  of  incalculable  benefit  to  the 
bewildered  foreigner,  as  well  as  to  American 
women,  if  we  can  succeed  in  establishing  the  dis- 
tinction. To  expose  that  fallacy  is  the  severe  task 
to  which  I  have  set  my  hand.  It  is  a  difficult  sub- 
ject to  handle  discreetly,  and  will  demand  a  nice 
manipulation  of  words,  to  avoid  the  charge  that 
one  is  a  profane  railer  at  the  sanctities,  or  has  de- 
scended to  the  vulgar  exercise  of  public  calumny. 
This  anomaly  in  classification  is  not  confined 
to  any  one  department  of  natural  history,  as  may 
be  readily  illustrated.  We  describe  that  anatoid, 
web-footed  bird  which  is  larger  than  a  duck  and 
smaller  than  a  swan  as  the  Canada  Goose,  whilst 
in  reality  the  animal  is  the  Bvanta  canadensis. 
It  is  not  a  goose,  and  is  not  especially  indigenous 
to  Canada.  To  speak  of  the  "  American  Woman  " 
as  if  she  were  confined  to,  or  even  especially  char- 
acteristic of,  the  United  States,  is  as  if  one  were 
to  assume  that  the  common  scale  which  destroys 
apple  trees  is  found  nowhere  else  than  in  San 
Jos^,  or  that  the  potato-bug  confines  its  ravages  to 
Colorado-  These  pests  did  not  even  originate  in 
the  places  whose  names  they  bear,  and  the  "  Amer- 
ican Woman "  of  the  novelists  was  a  common 
occurrence  long  before  the  United  States  were 
discovered. 


6  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

It  is  a  familiar  fact,  however,  that  a  disease 
which  occurs  sporadically  in  one  milieu  will  burst 
into  an  epidemic  of  unexampled  fury  when  it  is 
transferred  to  a  new  environment.  The  malady 
known  as  measles,  which  is  comparatively  harm- 
less in  all  civilized  communities,  becomes  a  plague 
worse  than  small-pox  when  primitive  peoples 
are  inoculated  with  its  virus.  Upon  this  analogy 
it  would  appear  probable  that  the  "  American 
Woman  "  was  introduced  into  the  United  States 
at  a  very  early  period,  and  finding  there  a  suit- 
able environment,  began  to  develop  an  exuberant 
growth  and  to  thrive  exceedingly,  with  such  coarse 
luxuriousness  as  one  beholds  in  a  shade-dwelling 
plant  which  is  suddenly  transported  into  the  light. 

An  experience  of  a  similar  nature  has  been 
witnessed  in  England  in  the  case  of  rats.  The 
"  Old-English "  black  rat,  up  to  the  eighteenth 
centui'y,  was  in  possession  of  the  country.  But 
about  that  time,  and  curiously  coincident  with 
certain  political  events,  England  was  invaded  by 
the  "Hanoverian"  brown  rat,  which  was  probably 
Mongolian  in  origin.  The  invaders  —  according  to 
this  natural  law  —  began  to  breed  with  amazing 
rapidity,  and  are  at  present  in  entire  control  of 
the  situation.  And  yet  the  analogy  is  scarcely 
convincing,  since  rats  increase  and  multipl}^  by 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  7 

the  process  of  ordinary  generation,  whilst  the  type 
under  consideration  breeds  only  very  sparingly. 
By  a  process  of  calculated  sterility  which  event- 
ually becomes  automatic,  she  attains  to  the  illu- 
sory reward  of  childlessness. 

It  would  be  too  large  a  task  to  trace  the  genesis 
of  the  "  American  Woman"  beyond  the  period 
of  her  entry  into  New  England,  fascinating  as 
that  investisration  would  be.  The  evidence  of  her 
existence  in  remote  times  and  in  diverse  places 
is  ample.  In  Ephesus  we  seem  to  suspect  her  pre- 
sence. Indeed  the  words  of  Paul  are  confirmatory : 
"  I  suffer  not  a  woman  to  usurp  authority  over  a 
man,  but  to  be  in  silence."  Upon  this  matter  of 
women  the  Apostle  had  made  up  his  mind.  Mod- 
est apparel,  and  sobriety,  and  good  works,  he  told 
the  women  of  the  mongrel  city  of  Corinth,  were 
more  becoming  to  them  than  costly  array.  We 
could  well  wish  that,  upon  other  matters  of  doc- 
trine, he  had  been  equally  specific.  In  the  remote 
days  of  the  much  distressed  Ezekiel  there  were 
also  women  of  this  type,  who,  by  the  absurd  prac- 
tice of  "  sewing  pillows  to  their  armholes,  made 
the  hearts  of  the  righteous  sad."  The  Proverbi- 
alist  also,  in  his  great  eulogy,  had  this  woman  in 
his  mind  when  he  declared  that  "  favour  is  deceit- 
ful and  beauty  vain." 


8  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

We  suspect  her  presence  in  Rome  as  early  as 
the  close  of  the  Punic  War,  if  Livius  informs  us 
truly  of  an  incident  which  finds  its  exact  coun- 
terpart in  the  conduct  of  the  women  who  have 
recently  been  behaving  with  unseemliness  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  reasons  are  well  given 
by  Cato,  the  Consul,  in  his  speech  :  "  If  men  had 
retained  their  rights  and  dignity  within  the  family, 
the  women  would  never  have  broken  out  in  this 
public  manner.  But  now  we  allow  them  to  take 
part  in  politics.  If  they  succeed,  who  knows  where 
they  will  end?  "  To  this  L.  Valerius,  the  Tribune, 
made  the  familiar  reply :  "  Women  cannot  hold 
public  offices  or  gain  triumphs  ;  they  have  no  pub- 
lic occupations.  What,  then,  can  they  do  but  de- 
vote their  time  to  adornment  and  dress  ?  Surely, 
then,  men  ought  to  let  them  have  their  own  way 
in  these  matters." 

The  "  American  Woman  "  was  early  upon  the 
scene  in  New  England,  probably  as  early  as  1620, 
the  year  in  which  the  first  ship-load  of  passengers 
arrived.  The  annals  of  the  community  are  full  of 
accounts  of  her  doings.  One  of  the  most  froward 
brought  the  accusation  against  the  ministers  in 
Boston  that  they  were,  with  one  exception,  under 
a  covenant  of  works ;  and  she  made  out  so  good 
a  case  that  she  was  banished.  A  companion  of 


THE   AMERICAN  WOMAN  9 

hers  harassed  the  ministers  for  five  years  by  aris- 
ing in  church  and  asking  questions,  apparently 
to  elucidate  the  sermon,  but  in  reality  to  afford 
her  the  opportunity  of  applying  opprobrious  epi- 
thets to  the  preachers.  At  length  she  was  forcibly 
removed  from  the  communion-table  and  "put 
forth  by  the  constable."  A  third  woman  pushed 
her  recalcitrancy  to  such  a  point  that  "  she  would 
not  bow  her  knee  even  at  the  name  of  Jesus." 
The  whip  and  cleft  stick  was  her  portion ;  yet  in 
spite  of  these  precautionary  measures,  the  evil  had 
grown  so  large  that  in  ten  years  sixty  women  as- 
sembled regularly  to  "  revolve  points  of  doctrine." 
A  diet  of  ministers  was  established  to  consider  fur- 
ther measures  of  repression,  but  it  is  perhaps  need- 
less to  add  that  nothing  very  definite  came  of  their 
deliberations.  The  general  opinion  prevailed  that 
the  phenomenon  was  a  new  one  in  the  history  of 
the  world ;  but,  in  opposition  to  this,  John  Cot- 
ton cited  the  case  of  Eve,  of  Sara,  of  Jezebel,  of 
Herodias,  and  the  Scarlet  Woman.  He  contended 
boldly  that  the  type  which  was  causing  them  so 
much  annoyance  had  not  arisen  de  novo,  but  had 
come  from  the  devil. 

The  origin  of  evil  has  always  been  a  fascinat- 
ing speculation  to  the  novelist  as  well  as  to  the 
theologian ;  but  all  writers   are  agreed  that  it 


10  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

lies  somewhere  outside  of  their  own  hearts  and 
beyond  the  confines  of  their  own  country.  When 
Canadians  discover  political  and  social  evils  in 
their  midst,  they  are  quite  sure  that  they  come 
from  the  United  States.  The  outbreaks  of  wick- 
edness, which  occurred  sporadically,  though  not 
infrequently,  in  Scotland,  ranging  in  heinousness 
from  assassination  to  sleeping  in  church,  were 
ultimately  traced  across  the  Tweed  to  England, 
or  across  the  Channel  to  France.  The  early  inhab- 
itants of  New  England  —  Puritan  though  they 
were  —  found  that  the  "  American  Woman  "  was 
also  present  with  them  ;  and,  having  no  neigh- 
bours from  whom  they  could  acquire  the  infection, 
they  boldly  ascribed  the  phenomenon  to  an  out- 
side source  and  laid  it  to  the  charge  of  the  devil. 

One  has  a  certain  hesitancy  in  contradicting 
the  divines  of  New  England  upon  a  question  in 
which  they  were  so  much  at  home ;  yet  I  think 
that,  by  a  less  esoteric  exegesis,  we  may  arrive  at 
an  understanding  of  this  phenomenon.  Idleness 
alone,  which  they  described  as  the  "  mother  of 
naughtiness,"  will  account  for  all  those  charac- 
teristics which  are  expressed  by  the  term  "  Ameri- 
can Woman."  It  is  an  eternal  law  —  at  least  it 
has  been  a  law  since  the  beginning  of  created 
things  —  that  an  organ,  an  animal,  or  a  species 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  11 

cannot  exist  independently  of  its  function.  Life 
and  growth  are  bound  up  with  work,  and  we  have 
not  yet  grown  so  mighty  that  we  have  emanci- 
pated ourselves  from  the  dominion  of  this  law. 

The  primitive  functions  of  the  woman  were  to 
prepare  food  and  clothing,  to  care  for  her  mate 
and  the  offspring  which  she  had  assisted  in  pro- 
ducing. In  course  of  time,  and  for  reasons  largely 
beyond  her  control,  these  activities  have  become 
less  incumbent  upon  her.  With  one  exception 
they  have  been  usurped  by  the  male  or  placed  in 
the  hands  of  hirelings.  In  the  progress  of  civili- 
zation and  by  the  division  of  labour  the  food  is 
purchased  partially  or  wholly  prepared.  The 
cereal  food  and  the  soup  require  only  the  ad- 
dition of  boiling  water,  as  the  advertisements 
boast ;  the  fish  and  meat  may  be  eaten  without 
the  necessity  of  her  performing  that  humble  la- 
bour. In  America  this  industrial  change  has  been 
remarkably  rapid,  and  there  are  women  living  in 
idleness  to-day,  who  in  their  youth  took  the  sheaf 
from  the  field  and  had  the  evening  meal  prepared 
from  it  before  the  night  fell. 

Every  advance  in  that  industrial  development 
of  which  we  are  boasting  continually  makes  for 
the  destruction  of  the  family.  Originally  each 
family  was  more  or  less  self-contained  and  mutu- 


12  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

ally  supporting.  The  man  procured  food  from 
the  forest,  from  the  sea,  or  from  the  soil,  and  he 
was  aided  in  these  occupations  by  his  boys,  who 
became  competent  at  a  very  early  age.  The  woman 
dressed  the  skins,  made  them  into  garments,  and 
prepared  the  food  for  eating.  In  later  times  she 
carded  the  wool,  spun  the  yarn,  wove  the  cloth, 
and  fashioned  it  into  clothing ;  and  there  are  men 
yet  living  who  look  back  with  yearning  to  a  fam- 
ily life  in  which  these  occupations  were  the  chief 
concern.  At  an  early  age  the  girl  too  was  initi- 
ated into  these  mysteries.  She  was  self-support- 
ing from  her  childhood ;  and,  indeed,  added  to 
the  wealth  and  comfort  of  the  family.  The  child, 
instead  of  being  a  burden,  was  an  asset.  Both 
male  and  female  were  efficient  members  of  the 
community,  and  there  was  an  honoured  place  for 
even  the  maiden  aunt,  made  honourable  by  her 
usefulness.  This  was  a  sound,  sober,  and  healthy 
life,  dignified  by  honest  toil  and  the  pride  of  skill 
and  independence. 

Into  this  community  of  families  comes  the 
manufacturer  with  his  machinery,  and  his  love  of 
money,  and  his  formulas  about  efficiency,  saving 
of  labour,  industrial  progress,  and  commercial 
development.  Every  turn  of  his  wheels  disinte- 
grates the  family  by  destroying  the  multifarious 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  13 

occupation  of  every  member  of  it.  The  butter 
which  used  to  be  churned  in  the  dairy  kept  cool  by 
an  over-hanging  willow-tree  is  now  made  in  a  fac- 
tory. The  sheep  which  the  children  tended  upon 
the  hillside  are  gone,  and  with  them  the  occupa- 
tions of  carding,  spinning,  and  weaving,  which 
made  the  long  winter  evenings  too  short  for  the 
work  to  be  done.  The  larder  is  stored  day  by  day 
from  the  grocer's  waggon,  and  those  delectable 
times  are  vanished  in  which  the  womenkind,  with 
a  book  ready  at  hand  for  an  emergency  of  idle- 
ness, gathered  the  apple  and  the  berry,  and  pre- 
served them  in  shining  rows,  not  for  that  year 
alone  but  for  next  year  and  the  year  after. 

The  care  of  the  offspring  has  been  handed  over 
to  male  and  female  hirelings,  —  physicians  and 
nurses,  —  and  thus  a  wide  outlet  for  the  physical 
and  mental  activity  of  the  woman  has  been  effec- 
tually stopped.  Deprived  of  the  care  of  her  chil- 
dren, the  woman  suffers  a  diminution  of  her  affec- 
tion, and  it  is  replaced  by  a  noisy  sentimentalism 
which  is  equally  disastrous  for  mother,  child,  and 
husband.  It  is  the  maternal  instinct  running  riot. 
It  exhausts  itself  upon  the  infant,  and  none  re- 
mains for  the  growing  child  when  it  might  be  of 
some  value.  The  American  mother  is  famous  for 
the  care  of  her  infant  and  the  neglect  of  her  child ; 


14  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

and  yet  we  cannot  but  wonder  that  the  results 
should  be  so  good  as  they  are,  when  we  reflect 
how  many  mothers  are  ignorant,  how  many  are 
indolent,  and  how  many  there  are  whose  work  and 
leisure  are  misapplied. 

We  have  seen  that  women  have  handed  over 
their  function  of  preparing  food  to  the  cook,  the 
making  of  clothing  to  the  tailor,  the  care  of  their 
children  to  the  physician.  If  these  substitutes 
were  females,  the  case  would  not  be  so  anomalous; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  males,  and  I  believe 
that  all  women  now  recognize  the  superiority  of 
the  man-cook,  the  man-tailor,  and  the  man-mid- 
wife. It  was  left  to  Ibsen  to  discover  that  a  woman 
could  not  sew  a  button  to  a  garment  effectually, 
and  he  was  in  the  habit  of  performing  that  hum- 
ble office  for  himself.  Since  his  death,  however,  his 
wife  has  confessed  that  she  made  it  a  secret  prac- 
tice to  reinforce  his  attempt  with  her  own  needle. 

The  country  has  grown  rich,  but  the  family  is 
destroyed.  I  am  quite  well  aware  how  far  the 
present  condition  is  due  to  the  mistaken  activities 
of  men,  but  I  am  not  speaking  of  them  just  now. 
When  the  family  life  was  swallowed  up  in  the 
industrial  life  the  natural  occupations  of  women 
vanished.  There  was  then  idleness  and  money  for 
the  women  of  the  rich  ;  idleness  alone  for  the 


THE   AMERICAN   WOMAN  15 

women  of  the  poor.  To  escape  from  the  continu- 
ous torture  of  sheer  want,  these  were  obliged  to 
take  refuge  in  the  street,  and  the  factory,  which 
is  twin-sister  to  the  slum.  But  for  the  daughters 
of  the  newly  rich  there  was  not  even  this  poor  ref- 
uge from  le  vide  effrayant  de  la  vie.  Both  classes 
are  now  more  unhappy  than  when  they  lived 
in  trees.  The  women  of  the  poor  are  imploring 
the  world  for  leisure,  and  the  women  of  the  rich 
are  imploring  it  for  work  as  a  relief  from  pam- 
pered self-indulgence.  They  are  not  allowed  to 
earn  money,  since  that  would  be  taking  the  bread 
from  their  poorer  sisters.  In  default  of  answer 
they  are  creating  work  for  themselves,  and  are 
even  willing  to  perform  the  drudgery  of  chari- 
table societies,  for  the  sake  of  tiring  themselves 
out.  This  feverish  desire  to  do  something  is  a  sign 
of  the  malady  of  the  age ;  and  it  is  a  piteous  spec- 
tacle,—  the  one  class  overburdened  with  uncon- 
genial toil,  the  other  oppressed  with  idleness,  and 
wandering  into  all  kinds  of  vagary  through  sheer 
weariness,  or  resolution  to  escape  from  the  help- 
less entanglement  of  the  sordid  perplexities  and 
mean  trivialities  of  domestic  life.  And  yet  these 
idle  busybodies,  worn  out  with  their  silly  labours, 
are  willing  to  tread  the  same  weary  round  the 
next  day. 


16  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

The  Catholic  Church  for  sixteen  centuries  has 
made  provision  against  idleness  on  the  part  of  its 
women,  in  institutions  where  they  have  two  sover- 
eign remedies,  work  and  religion.  Some  feeble 
beginnings  have  been  made  in  other  churches, 
which  have  established  sisterhoods,  and  revived 
the  diaconate  for  women.  But  the  hospital  appears 
to  open  the  most  generous  door,  though  one  hears 
that  it  is  not  so  well  liked  as  a  refuge  for  idle 
women  as  it  used  to  be  before  it  was  sought  by- 
women  who  believed  that  nursing  was  a  less  hum- 
ble employment  than  those  in  which  they  had 
been  previously  engaged. 

Forty  years  ago  it  was  the  fashion  to  pretend 
that  the  world  could  do  very  well  without  religion, 
if  only  it  had  enough  science.  The  scientists  are 
not  now  so  sure  of  their  ground,  but  they  comfort 
themselves  with  the  further  delusion  that  when 
we  get  flying-machines  we  shall  be  right.  However 
it  may  be  with  men,  women  cannot  get  on  with- 
out religion.  I  am  not  speaking,  either,  of  that  in- 
ward, ardent  desire  after  righteousness,  though 
that  in  itself  is  not  to  be  despised,  but  of  an  organ- 
ized system  which  gops  by  the  name  of  Church. 
It  makes  for  the  organization  of  the  family  also 
and  for  domestic  piety,  that  piety  which  even  in 
these  days  impels  many  an  American  father  to 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  17 

worship  God  in  his  household  whilst  the  rain  is 
threatening  his  crops  in  the  fields.  All  human 
conduct  has  its  roots  in  the  emotions,  and  is  vari- 
ously moulded  by  the  reason  —  by  women  less 
than  by  men.  These  roots  are  twisted  and  inter- 
woven ;  and  when  one  is  stunted,  especially  so 
important  an  one  as  that  which  goes  down  into 
the  springs  of  religion,  the  growth  is  bound  to  be 
eccentric  and  without  symmetry. 

In  a  society  which  has  grown  up  by  natural  pro- 
cess in  the  course  of  slow  centuries,  the  woman 
performs  her  duties  easily,  almost  unconsciously. 
In  a  society  which  is  the  product  of  only  a  genera- 
tion, the  woman  who  aspires  beyond  her  primi- 
tive functions  is  an  amateur  in  a  new  role.  We 
have  all  seen  and  pitied  an  animal  compelled  to 
perform  a  new  and  uncongenial  task  —  a  dog  in  a 
dance,  or  a  monkey  sedulous  over  his  sewing.  Off 
the  stage,  we  are  told  that  these  animals  are  sub- 
ject to  fits  of  ill-temper,  to  outbursts  of  emotion, 
to  discontent ;  that  they  crave  for  excitement,  and 
that  they  finally  "break  down."  It  is  not  disclos- 
ing any  professional  confidences  to  say  that  symp- 
toms of  a  somewhat  similar  nature  have  been  ob- 
served in  the  case  of  the  type  of  woman  which  we 
are  considering,  as  a  result  of  her  performance. 
The  man  and  the  woman  are  complementary, 


18  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

the  one  to  the  other.  In  so  far  as  the  woman  ac- 
quires the  qualities  and  characteristics  of  the  man 
she  becomes  to  that  extent  futile,  as  futile  as  the 
man  who  has  acquired  the  quality  of  effeminacy. 
No  matter  how  effeminate  a  man  becomes,  he  can 
never  be  so  adorable  as  a  woman.  He  will  always 
be  an  amateur  in  that  role,  and  the  woman  has 
him  beaten  at  the  start.  The  man,  qua  man,  in 
virtue  of  his  own  and  his  ancestral  experience 
has  an  advantage  over  the  woman  in  such  exer- 
cises as  playing  golf,  smoking  cigarettes,  and 
drinking  whiskey,  which  she  will  find  it  difficult 
to  overcome  even  by  the  most  assiduous  effort  at 
imitation.  She,  also,  in  our  lifetime  at  least,  must 
remain  an  amateur ;  and  her  self-consciousness 
destroys  all  pleasure  to  herself  or  the  beholder  in 
her  heroic  endeavour  to  be  something  other  than 
that  for  which  she  was  designed. 

Keduced  by  a  power  not  her  own  to  a  condition 
of  idleness,  her  case  is  a  most  unhappy  one,  and 
her  manifold  activities  in  the  street,  in  places  of 
entertainment,  and  finally  in  the  divorce  court 
are  merely  blind  strivings  to  free  herself  from  an 
intolerable  ennui.  Her  life  is  one  of  rivalry  for 
appearance  and  position.  The  struggle  exhausts 
her  energy  and  all  other  means  at  her  disposal. 
Her  mind  becomes  warped  and  her  ambition  dis- 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  19 

torted.  Eternal  restlessness  is  her  portion,  a  dis- 
like of  any  discipline,  a  hatred  of  any  law  save 
that  which  her  own  whim,  will,  or  desire  imposes. 
To  impose  this  law  upon  others  becomes  her  con- 
stant occupation. 

The  most  oppressive  burden  which  a  woman  is 
called  upon  to  endure  is  that  anomaly  amongst 
created  beings,  the  wearing  of  clothes.  In  the  state 
of  nature  it  is  ordained  that  the  female  shall  go 
quietly.  The  male  is  the  gaudy,  strutting  creature. 
But  in  the  race  to  which  we  belong,  it  is  the 
■woman  who  is  glorious,  and  this  burden  of  splen- 
dour falling  upon  an  organism  which  is  unquali- 
fied for  the  task  breaks  it  down  hopelessly,  and 
renders  it  unfit  for  the  performance  of  its  proper 
functions.  The  possession  of  splendid  apparel  in- 
volves the  necessity  for  its  display,  and  out  of  that 
arises  vanity,  jealousy,  rivalry,  and  all  unchari- 
tableness.  This  is  the  genesis  of  the  thing  which 
is  known  as  Society. 

To  the  American  man  there  is  something  mys- 
terious about  this  society,  and  his  womenkind 
alone  are  supposed  to  understand  it.  He  is  in  re- 
ality a  simple-minded  person  ;  and  a  certain  class 
of  women  have  entered  into  a  conspiracy  against 
him,  by  which  they  shall  live  in  idleness,  and  he 
shall  "  labour  and  toil,  and  rob,  and  steal,  and 


20  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

bring  all  to  his  love."  The  mark  of  social  distinc- 
tion in  primitive  communities  is  idleness  on  the 
part  of  the  woman.  One  mark  of  poverty  is  that 
women  are  obliged  to  work.  Brought  up  in  an  old- 
fashioned  way,  the  American  man  thinks  that  he 
has  extricated  himself  from  poverty  when  he  has 
succeeded  in  keeping  his  womenkind  free  from 
the  necessity  of  work.  Speaking  generally,  this  is 
the  aim  of  the  women  of  this  type,  —  to  live  a  life 
of  luxurious  idleness. 

The  next  anomaly  under  which  we  labour  is 
that  we  are  compelled  to  live  in  houses  and  have 
not  yet  become  convinced  what  the  proper  form 
of  habitation  is.  The  American  man  is  himself 
without  taste.  The  possession  of  taste  is  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  woman.  Accordingly  she  is  the 
one  who  deals  with  the  architect  and  decorator, 
and  is  supposed  to  understand  all  matters  per- 
taining to  architecture,  decoration,  and  furnishing 
in  virtue  of  her  femininity  alone.  When  it  comes 
to  a  question  of  building  a  "  home  "  —  as  if  a 
home  could  be  built  with  hands  —  the  rich,  free, 
woman,  to  demonstrate  her  equality  with  the  rich 
woman  of  older  communities,  must  have  a  house 
which  resembles  "  the  stately  homes  of  England," 
or  a  villa  which  vies  in  beauty  with  the  abode  of 
a  "  merchant-prince  "  of  mediaeval  Florence :  or 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  21 

to  demonstrate  the  catholicity  which  exists  in  a 
free  country,  she  will  probably  achieve  a  combi- 
nation of  both,  with  certain  features  added,  which 
belong  exclusively  to  a  cathedral  or  a  fortress. 

This  architectural  orgy  is  enlivened  by  a  piano, 
we  shall  say.  The  more  impecunious  woman  cannot 
afford  even  that  poor  luxury ;  but  she  must  have 
a  contrivance  which  looks  like  a  piano,  whilst  in 
reality  it  is  a  bed.  It  serves  the  purpose  of  a  piano 
very  well,  and  helps  to  preserve  the  semblance 
of  equality ;  although  the  duality  of  its  function 
interferes  with  its  efficiency  as  a  sleeping-place. 

Again,  the  rich  woman  carries  in  her  hand  a  bag, 
or  satchel,  —  to  give  to  that  convenient  article  a 
more  elegant  designation, — made  from  the  skin  of 
an  alligator.  This  is  a  mark  of  distinction  which 
is  intolerable  in  an  atmosphere  of  freedom.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  machines  are  set  to  work  to  imitate 
this  handy  contrivance,  and  the  spectacle  is  pro- 
duced of  a  whole  nation  carrying  bags  which  are 
made  out  of  paper  and  are  not  even  frankly  false. 

In  the  more  degrading  social  conditions  which 
prevail  in  older  communities  each  citizen  wears 
clothing  which  he  has  learned  by  experience  and 
tradition  is  most  suitable  to  his  occupation  in  life ; 
and  this  practice  leads  to  a  distinction  between 
workers  in  various  trades,  to  the  creation  of  classes. 


22  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

The  flare  and  pearlies  of  the  costermonger,  the 
hobnailed  boots  of  the  ploughboy,  the  blue  smock 
of  the  butcher,  the  corduroy  trousers  of  the  la- 
bourer, the  garb  of  the  city  clerk,  all  proclaim  the 
class  as  clearly  as  a  uniform  betrays  the  colonel 
or  the  clergyman.  In  a  free  country  a  style  is  es- 
tablished, no  one  can  say  exactly  how.  In  a  month 
the  wife  of  every  member  of  the  community, 
plumber,  barber,  factory-hand,  and  millionaire,  is 
clad  in  imitation  and  rivalry  of  every  other. 

There  yet  remains  one  function  which  is  in  the 
exclusive  possession  of  the  woman,  and  no  means 
have  been  discovered  up  to  the  present  time  by 
which  it  can  be  performed  any  better,  though  even 
that  is  done  in  a  poor, "  make-shift  way."  This  is 
the  part  which  she  plays  in  the  propagation  of  the 
species.  Deprived  of  this  excuse  for  existence,  the 
female  of  the  human  race  becomes  entirely  a  para- 
site unless  she  finds  other  justification.  And  yet  in 
respect  of  this  remaining  function  there  is  some 
evidence  that  the  woman  is  not  doing  her  best,  that 
in  fact  she  is  following  the  example  of  that  un- 
profitable servant  who  wrapped  up  his  one  talent 
in  a  napkin. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  this  indisposition  to 
exercise  a  natural  function  is  due  not  to  recalci- 
trancy, but  to  an  instinct  that  the  species  is  not 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  23 

worth  reproducing.  By  a  purely  mental  process  a 
woman  might  arrive  at  this  conclusion,  and  there 
is  some  ground  for  that  view  of  the  case,  but  she 
should  remain  true  to  the  austerity  of  this  doc- 
trine, and  not  vitiate  the  intellectual  independence 
of  which  she  boasts  by  involving  herself  in  social 
conditions.  The  time  for  proclaiming  one's  free- 
dom is  before,  not  after,  one  has  consented  to  eat 
the  bread  of  another.  But  the  plea  which  is  put 
forward  is  the  less  cynical  one  that  the  quality  of 
offspring  is  more  important  than  quantity.  This, 
I  believe,  is  a  favourite  subject  of  discussion  at 
those  assemblages  of  women  which,  with  some  de- 
gree of  incongruity,  are  styled  mothers'  meetings. 
At  one  of  these  meetings  which  I  had  the  privi- 
lege of  addressing,  enquiry  showed  that  the  tech- 
nical motherhood  estimated  in  terms  of  offspring 
amounted  to  .87  per  person  present.  An  exami- 
nation of  this  defence  of  quality  against  quantity 
involves  the  assumption  that  it  is  worth  while  to 
consider  the  opinion  of  persons  who  know  nothing 
of  the  matter  in  hand,  and  the  further  assump- 
tion that  motherhood  is  conferred  by  the  mere 
act  of  attendance  at  these  meetings.  The  plea  is 
fallacious,  for  it  is  a  law  of  life  discovered  by 
experience  that  individual  degeneration  of  the 
offspring  accompanies  numerical  diminution. 


24  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

The  fall  of  the  race  always  comes  through  the 
woman.  Tempted  by  the  "  subtle  beast "  towards 
a  false  ambition  and  away  from  her  appointed 
task,  she  puts  forth  her  hand  to  attain  to  a  know- 
ledge which  is  forbidden,  and  brings  the  disaster 
of  obliteration.  That  is  the  curse  of  Eve.  But  one 
who  would  not  object  much  to  the  sudden  extinc- 
tion of  the  race  might  well  deplore  a  long  grada- 
tion of  decay. 

There  is  a  profound  scientific  refutation  of  this 
fallacy  that  quality  may  be  obtained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  quantity.  Professor  Karl  Pearson  has 
shown  from  his  investigations  into  the  inherit- 
ance of  tuberculosis  that  the  earlier  members  of 
a  large  family  are  more  apt  to  inherit  disease 
than  those  who  are  born  later,  and  that  therefore 
the  limitation  of  families  to  two  children,  which 
now  appears  to  be  the  desirable  number,  is  in- 
creasing the  percentage  of  persons  with  weak  con- 
stitutions. This  is  nature's  method  of  dealing  with 
the  fictitious  law  of  primogeniture.  Human  inge- 
nuity is  powerless  in  face  of  the  mysterious  laws 
by  which  reproduction  is  governed ;  and  created 
beings  invariably  get  the  worst  of  it  when  they 
set  themselves  in  opposition  to  those  laws. 

Bat,  fortunately  or  unfortunately,  a  diminish- 
ing birth-rate  is  confined  for  the  most  part  to 


THE   AMERICAN   WOMAN  25 

those  societies  which  we  are  accustomed  to  think 
of  as  highly  civilized.  The  phenomenon  is  not 
new.  The  Greeks  foresaw  and  feared  it.  To  them 
the  Amazon  was  the  woman  broken  away  from 
her  natural  obligations,  always  a  peril  to  the  race. 
Amongst  the  Romans,  Juvenal  made  his  grim 
jests  at  her  expense.  A  false  education,  he  affirmed 
in  his  "  Legend  of  Bad  Women,"  which  stimu- 
lated false  energies  and  excited  abnormal  ambi- 
tions, made  her  contemptuous  of  her  femininity, 
and  encouraged  her  to  substitute  for  it  an  ideal 
which  was  hybrid  and  grotesque.  It  was  against 
this  type  the  jest  of  the  comic  stage  was  directed : 
"  A  man  with  her  has  only  two  happy  days,  the 
day  he  marries  her  and  the  day  he  buries  her." 

It  was  a  favourite  view  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
that  the  stork  chose  to  inhabit  only  those  coun- 
tries which  were  free.  Strangely  enough,  in  these 
days,  it  is  to  the  countries  which  are  free —  if  free- 
dom be  indicated  by  a  republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment—  that  this  bird  of  good  omen  comes  the 
least  frequently.  We  may  leave  France  out  of 
consideration,  for  that  unhappy  country  has  been 
faithfully  dealt  with  by  other  moralists,  and  look 
a  little  nearer  home. 

Previous  to  the  year  1840,  in  the  United  States, 
the  increase  in  population  by  native  reproduction 


26  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

was  seven  times  greater  than  the  growth  of  immi- 
gration. Both  Washington  and  Jefferson  had  esti- 
mated that  in  the  year  1875  their  country  would 
contain  sixty  millions  of  native-born  Americans. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  according  to  the  census  of 
1900,  the  numbers  were  not  more  than  forty-two 
millions,  the  rest  of  the  population  being  made  up 
of  immigrants,  the  children  of  immigrants,  and 
negroes.  Massachusetts,  at  the  time  of  the  census, 
had  in  its  population  of  2,805,346  as  many  as 
843,324  persons  of  foreign  birth.  The  Massa- 
chusetts Bureau  of  Labour  Statistics  has  compiled 
a  more  recent  report  on  the  nationalities  of  the 
people  engaged  in  the  industries  of  the  State.  It 
deals  with  industries  and  professions  employing 
1,079,000  persons,  and  of  these  only  62.46  per 
cent  were  born  in  Massachusetts ;  in  New  York, 
76.6  per  cent  of  the  citizens  are  aliens  or  the  chil- 
dren of  aliens.  The  first  federal  census  was  taken 
in  1790,  the  last  in  1900.  During  that  period  the 
American  family  has  dwindled  from  an  average 
of  5.8  to  4.6  persons  ;  and  the  number  of  children 
under  16  years  of  age  in  each  family  has  dimin- 
ished from  2.8  to  1.5.  There  are  only  two  other 
countries  in  the  world,  Austria  and  Germany,  in 
which  the  ratio  is  lower.  If  the  normal  rate  which 
prevailed  in  colonial  days  had  been  continued, 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  27 

there  would  be  now  in  the  United  States  twenty 
million  more  native-born  white  citizens  than  there 
are. 

In  England  a  remarkable  decline  in  the  birth- 
rate  is  recorded  in  the  Kegistrar-General's  return 
for  the  last  quarter  of  1907.  The  births  regis- 
tered in  England  and  Wales  during  the  fourth 
quarter  of  that  year  were  in  the  proportion  of 
24.8  annually  per  1,000  of  the  population.  This 
is  2.5  per  1,000  below  the  mean  birth-rate  re- 
corded in  the  ten  preceding  fourth  quarters,  and 
is  the  lowest  rate  recorded  in  any  fourth  quarter 
since  civil  registration  was  established.  For  the 
whole  of  1907  the  birth-rate  in  England  and 
Wales  was  26.3  per  1,000,  the  lowest  on  record, 
and  2.1  below  the  average  birth-rate  for  the  pre- 
ceding ten  years. 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  look  to  the  family 
life  of  Germany  as  the  last  refuge  of  sentiment 
and  religion,  and  yet  that  country  does  not  appear 
to  be  an  exception  to  the  law  that  an  advancing 
civilization  and  a  dwindling  birth-rate  go  hand 
in  hand.  We  are  informed  by  Professor  Werner 
Sombart,  a  sufficient  authority,  that  the  increase 
in  the  population  of  Germany  from  forty  millions 
in  1870  to  sixty-one  millions  in  1907  is  due  not 
to  an  increasing  birth-rate,  but  to  diminishing 


28  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

death-rate.  In  1872  the  deaths  were  30.6  per 
thousand  of  population,  whilst  in  1907  the  num- 
ber had  fallen  to  20  per  thousand.  During  the 
same  period  the  birth-rate  had  fallen  from  40.7 
births  for  every  thousand  of  population  to  37.4 
in  1891  and  to  34  in  1905.  Even  this  is  above  the 
average :  in  Holland  the  birth-rate  is  31.6 ;  in 
Denmark,  29  ;  in  Belgium,  28.1 ;  and  in  France  it 
is  21.3  per  thousand. 

An  instinct  fails  when  it  ceases  to  be  exercised. 
When  women,  in  the  progress  of  civilization, 
abandoned  the  practice  of  living  in  trees  for  the 
comfort  of  a  cave,  it  may  be  well  imagined  that 
they  quickly  forgot  the  nice  art  of  tree-keeping. 
Similarly,  those  who  live  in  "  flats  "  no  longer  re- 
tain a  remembrance  of  the  days  when  they  dwelt 
in  houses,  and  the  house  as  a  habitation  has  be- 
come as  extinct  for  them  as  the  cave.  The  instinct 
for  propagating  the  species  is  no  exception  to  this 
law,  and  in  time  the  female  of  the  human  will 
become  sexless  in  all  but  form,  which  is  now  so 
firmly  fixed  that  we  may  not  expect  any  funda- 
mental alteration.  And  yet  a  variation  of  type  is 
appearing.  The  "American  Woman"  of  whom 
I  am  speaking  is  growing  large,  sleek,  and  fat. 
She  retains  her  girlhood  until  comparatively 
late  in  life,  and  then  suddenly,  to  her  grief  and 


THE   AMERICAN   WOMAN  29 

rage,  falls  into  a  condition  of  senility  which 
no  devices  serve  long  to  postpone.  Indeed  the 
expression  "  married  girls  "  is  commonly  employed 
in  those  periodicals  which  concern  themselves 
with  her  doings.  And  the  proof  that  this  instinct 
is  failing  is  found  in  the  remedy  which  is  offered, 
that  the  nature  of  it  be  taught  in  schools  from 
books  on  physiology. 

Self-reliance  is  the  most  deadly  gift  which  the 
female  of  this  race  can  possess ;  and  yet  girls  are 
taught  from  their  earliest  years  to  be  assertive  of 
their  opinions,  insistent  upon  their  rights,  and 
clamorous  for  a  consideration  which  can  be  given 
ungrudgingly  only  when  it  is  least  demanded. 
And  so  she  goes  through  life  with  squared  shoul- 
ders and  set  face,  alert  for  any  "  insult  to  her 
womanhood."  The  American  man,  loving  peace, 
desiring  to  be  left  to  his  employments  and  de- 
vices, pretends  to  acquiesce,  and  so  leaves  her  in 
the  enjoyment  of  the  fool's  paradise  which  she 
has  created  for  herself.  A  militant  woman  is  as 
futile  as  a  militant  church. 

The  boy  who  is  accustomed  to  an  atmosphere 
such  as  I  have  described  knows  no  other  law,  since 
the  impression  received  in  boyhood  continues  to 
govern  the  man's  estimate  of  the  conduct  proper 
for  a  woman.  But  the  American  boy  who  has 


30  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

been  sedulously  taught  by  the  spoken  and  printed 
word  that  the  American  girl  is  the  highest  pro- 
duct of  civilization,  a  miracle  of  beauty,  conduct, 
and  character,  does  not  for  ever  retain  this  illu- 
sion, —  at  least  one  out  of  twelve  does  not,  after 
an  intimate  experience  lasting  6.42  years,  accord- 
ing to  the  best  statistics  available. 

So  amazing  a  statement  demands  authority.  It 
is  nothing  less  than  the  United  States  Census 
Bulletin  :  "  The  divorce-rate  per  100,000  popula- 
tion increased  from  29  in  1870  to  82  in  1905.  In 
the  former  year  there  was  one  divorce  for  every 
3,441  persons,  and  in  the  latter  year  one  for  every 
1,218.  Since  it  is  only  married  people  who  can 
become  divorced,  a  more  significant  divorce-rate 
is  that  which  is  based,  not  upon  total  population, 
but  upon  the  total  married  population.  The  rate 
per  100,000  married  population  was  81  in  the 
year  1870  and  200  in  the  year  1900.  This  com- 
parison indicates  that  divorce  is  at  present  two  and 
one  half  times  as  common,  compared  with  married 
population,  as  it  was  forty  years  ago.  A  divorce- 
rate  of  200  per  100,000  married  population  is 
equivalent  to  two  per  1,000  married  population. 
Assuming  that  1,000  married  people  represent  500 
married  couples,  it  follows  that  in  each  year  four 
married  couples  out  of  every  1,000  secure  a  di- 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  31 

vorce.  This  does  not  mean  that  only  four  mar- 
riages out  of  1,000  are  terminated  by  divorce.  The 
rate,  it  will  be  noted,  is  an  annual  rate,  continu- 
ously operative,  and  comes  far  short  of  measuring 
the  probability  of  ultimate  divorce.  The  available 
data  indicate,  however,  that  not  less  than  one 
marriage  in  12  is  ultimately  terminated  by  di- 
vorce." From  this  loosening  of  the  marriage  tie 
it  is  women  who  eventually  suffer.  If  divorce  oc- 
casionally frees  them  from  a  cruel  bondage,  more 
often  it  makes  men  familiar  with  the  idea  of  that 
last  infamy,  the  desertion  of  the  woman  in  her 
distress. 

The  root  of  the  matter  is  that  this  brood  of 
women  is  lawless  —  without  law.  The  law  is  that 
the  physically  weak  are  subject  to  the  physically 
strong.  By  no  subterfuge,  or  evasion,  or  resort 
to  simile,  analogy,  or  hyperbole  can  weak  be  con- 
verted into  strong.  Things  are  as  they  are  because 
the  world  of  life  has  grown  up  under  this  law.  The 
"  American  Woman"  proclaims  that  by  reason  of 
her  strength  of  intellect,  her  profundity  of  affec- 
tion, her  dazzling  beauty,  and  the  height  of  her 
emotion,  she  has  emancipated  herself.  Even  if  she 
were  in  possession  of  all  these  qualities,  —  and 
that  in  itself  is  an  assumption,  —  that  would  not 
involve  her  freedom.  But  the  American  man  has 


32  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

acquiesced  in  this  declaration  of  rights,  and  the 
woman  is  without  the  shelter  which  her  weakness 
gives. 

There  is  a  nice  balance  in  nature.  The  strong 
and  the  weak  exist  side  by  side,  because  the  weak 
know  that  they  are  weak  and  conduct  themselves 
accordingly.  They  acquire  a  caution,  a  pretty  cun- 
ning, an  adaptability  to  their  surroundings.  They 
learn  to  evade  what  they  cannot  resist,  to  avoid 
what  they  cannot  master,  because  they  are  aware 
that  resistance  is  stupidity  and  means  destruction. 
Let  us  take  note  of  the  fact  that  the  man  is  not 
subject  to  the  elephant,  because  the  physical 
strength  of  the  beast  is  outmatched  by  skill, 
knowledge,  and  intelligence.  The  qualities  by 
which  a  woman  attains  to  mastery  are  not  those 
by  which  a  man  arrives  at  an  understanding  with 
an  elephant.  Her  natural  resources,  those  by  which 
she  will  prevail,  are  gentleness,  long-suffering, 
kindness  ;  and  it  is  no  stain  upon  her  intelligence 
to  employ  them.  When  she  abandons  these,  she 
does  not  necessarily,  in  the  present  stage  of  civ- 
ilization, lose  her  life.  She  merely  becomes  an 
"  American  Woman,"  and  in  striving  for  her 
"  rights  "  she  loses  her  influence,  and  gives  us  a 
new  reading  of  the  old  fable  of  the  bone  and  its 
shadow. 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  33 

The  world  has  never  been  In  possession  o£  more 
than  five  main  ideas  at  any  one  time  and  is  not 
now  in  possession  of  any  more.  These  ideas  came 
very  early  in  the  history  of  the  race  ;  indeed  they 
may  have  appeai-ed  at  a  time  when  there  were  in 
existence  only  one  man  and  two  women  or  two 
women  and  one  man,  since  all  society  is  merely 
an  extension  of  these  factors,  and  all  literature  a 
record  of  their  behaviour. 

All  but  one  of  these  ideas  came  from  the  East. 
The  only  idea  which  we  have  originated  is  that 
a  man  who  may  know  nothing  about  anything  else 
knows  all  about  government.  These  western  com- 
munities have  achieved  much  in  the  way  of  com- 
plicating existence  by  the  utilization  of  natural 
forces,  and  have  assumed  that  they  were  generat- 
ing new  ideas.  But  when  finally  they  arrive  at  the 
limit  of  that  accomplishment  with  which  they  are 
now  most  concerned,  and  men  are  enabled  to  fly 
through  the  air  like  a  bird  or  a  dragon,  they  may 
reflect  upon  the  matter,  and  conclude  that  these 
contrivances  have  no  meaning,  the  conclusion  at 
which  that  amiable  and  amusing  Preacher  arrived, 
that  this  also  is  vanity,  and  that  old  fallacies  are 
not  new  ideas. 

To  correct  our  taste  in  poetry,  we  have  resort  to 
the  poets  who  made  their  verse  when  life  was  yet 


34  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

simple,  so  simple  that  the  suitors  for  the  greatest 
heroine  of  all  times  lay  upon  the  ground  without 
her  door,  and  cast  scraps  of  food  to  their  snarling 
dogs ;  when  men  were  resolute  to  lose  their  lives 
for  their  country  because  they  loved  it  so,  and 
gloried  in  those  achievements  which  saved  their 
race  from  destruction ;  when,  in  short,  the  fear  of 
the  gods  was  strong  upon  them. 

Similarly,  to  correct  our  view  of  life  we 
must  compare  it  with  the  view  which  it  pre- 
sented to  men  in  an  earlier  and  clearer  me- 
dium, when  they  saw  life  naked,  and  recorded 
with  truthfulness  what  they  saw.  Happily  these 
records  are  open  to  our  inspection  in  the  writings 
of  the  Hellenes,  and  more  clearly  in  those  writ- 
ings which  are  commonly  called  the  Scriptures 
of  that  portion  of  the  Semitic  race  which  occu- 
pied Lower  Asia.  These  Hebrews  were  especially 
concerned  with  conduct,  as  we  are  at  the  mo- 
ment, since  nearly  all  conduct — bad  as  well  as 
good  —  is  determined  by  the  authority  of  the 
woman. 

There  have  always  been  persons  in  the  world 
who  believed  that  these  Scriptures  were  true : 
it  is  only  during  the  lifetime  of  men  now  living 
that  we  have  learned  how  true  they  are,  —  and 
that,  by  the  simple  discovery  that  the  writers  of 


•    THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  35 

them  were  mainly  concerned  about  this  world, 
whilst  formerly  it  was  believed  that  they  were 
speaking  about  another  world,  of  which  they  had 
no  more  information  than  we  ourselves  enjoy. 

A  writer  of  whom  it  is  assumed  that  he  knows 
everything  about  everything  eventually  arrives 
at  that  point  where  it  is  assumed  that  he  knows 
nothing  about  anything.  These  Hebrew  writers 
made  no  such  pretence,  but  it  has  taken  us  nearly 
twenty  centuries  to  apprehend  that  they  spoke  in 
good  faith,  that  some  things  they  saw  as  if  re- 
flected darkly  in  a  mirror,  and  others  as  arising 
naked  out  of  human  experience.  We  may  be  per- 
mitted to  distrust  the  account  which  they  give 
of  the  creation  of  the  world  and  all  that  lives 
therein,  and  yet  give  full  assent  to  the  truth, 
awful  in  its  simplicity,  which  is  contained  in  such 
sentences  as,  a  thousand  years  are  but  as  one 
day ;  all  is  vanity ;  righteousness  exalteth  a  na- 
tion ;  the  woman  who  has  a  veil  on  her  head 
wears  authority  on  her  head.  It  is  this  last  saying 
which  I  am  endeavouring  to  expound,  because 
it  is  the  one  whose  truth  is  the  most  obscurely 
hidden  from  this  generation. 

It  is  a  common  charge  that  the  present  status 
of  women  is  due  to  the  influence  of  Christianity. 
I  do  not  think  that  this  statement  is  entirely  jus- 


36  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

tified,  but  it  will  bear  investigation.  In  the  out- 
set one  must  admit  that  the  status  of  women  in 
these  Christian  countries  differs  from  that  which 
prevails  in  Turkey  and  from  that  which  did  pre- 
vail in  ancient  Greece.  The  legal  position  of  the 
woman  is  more  assured  in  Turkey  than  in  any 
other  country.  At  marriage  she  receives  a  sepa- 
rate estate  from  her  husband,  and  he  has  no 
future  control  over  it.  It  remains  with  her  even 
if  she  should  be  divorced,  and  she  has  the  entire 
disposal  by  gift  or  by  testament  of  all  property 
acquired  before  marriage.  She  can  sue  her  hus- 
band and  be  sued  by  him.  He  is  obliged  to  main- 
tain his  wife  according  to  his  means.  It  is  custom- 
ary to  state  in  the  marriage  settlement  the  amount 
which  shall  be  allowed  for  household  expenses, 
and  the  husband  has  no  right  to  enquire  into  the 
details  of  the  expenditure.  It  may  well  be  under- 
stood that  the  practice  of  polygamy  has  fallen 
into  desuetude,  since  no  sensible  Turk  would 
willingly  put  himself  at  the  legal  mercy  of  more 
women  than  one. 

An  assured  legal  status  does  not  necessarily 
confer  domestic  authority  amongst  ourselves.  It 
is  due  to  other  circumstances  entirely,  probably 
the  wearing  of  the  veil  and  all  which  is  implied 
thereby,  that  the   Turkish   woman   exercises   a 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  37 

power  in  the  household  which  to  us  would  ap- 
pear tyrannical.  Her  husband  may  not  come 
into  her  presence  without  her  consent.  Her  sons, 
though  bearded  men,  may  not  sit  down  in  her 
presence,  without  first  seeking  her  permission. 
The  younger  women  may  not  take  their  places  at 
table  until  she  is  seated.  And  yet  the  news  comes 
that  even  with  all  these  rights  and  privileges  the 
Turkish  woman  is  not  content.  Hitherto  she  has 
been  under  no  other  obligation  than  to  behave 
herself  with  decency ;  but  since  the  events  of  July 
24th,  1908,  she  is  demanding  her  liberty,  that  is, 
the  liberty  of  exchanging  the  bone  for  the  shadow. 
The  first  thing  the  Turkish  women  did  when  the 
regulations  were  relaxed  was  to  cast  aside  their 
veils  and  assemble  in  a  public  place  to  demand 
"the  same  rights  and  the  same  position  as  that 
which  European  women  hold."  The  correspond- 
ent of  the  "Neues  Wiener  Tageblatt,"  who  re- 
lates the  occurrence,  adds  with  mistaken  glee 
that  "  the  scene  and  the  sight  of  the  small,  white 
hands  sparkling  with  jewels  and  clapping  with 
enthusiasm  took  him  to  Madison  Square  into  a 
meetins:  of  the  free  women  of  America." 

From  China  also  comes  disturbing  news  which 
to  some  betokens  augury  of  better  things.  Clubs 
have  been  formed  under  the  pretext  of  opposing 


38  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

the  fashion  of  "  little  feet,"  but  now  the  members 
proclaim  themselves  "  women  who  intend  to  fol- 
low their  own  will."  This  movement  towards 
"  emancipation  "  appears  to  find  favour  in  high 
quarters,  for  an  Imperial  edict  has  gone  forth  that 
"  women  ought  not  to  pass  their  life  in  eating  and 
gossiping." 

We  have  seen  that  in  Turkey  the  women  pos- 
sess both  an  assured  legal  position  and  domestic 
authority.  In  Hellas,  however,  they  had  domestic 
authority  without  the  legal  status.  The  Greek 
women  had  no  rights,  but  were  completely  in  the 
power  of  the  men.  They  were  extraordinarily 
meek ;  but,  if  we  can  believe  what  we  read,  never 
were  women  subjected  to  a  rule  so  gentle  and  so 
gracious,  and  never  were  there  women  who  ap- 
peared so  perfect  and  so  happy.  Affection,  regard, 
and  deference  was  their  portion.  Whatever  they 
did  was  right ;  if  they  appeared  to  do  wrong,  a  man 
was  to  blame  for  enticing  them  or  a  god  for  afflict- 
ing them  with  madness.  It  was  also  regarded  as 
a  sign  of  madness  that  one  should  find  fault  with 
her  husband,  if  we  can  trust  the  account  which 
Sophocles  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Dejanira.  For 
Helen  herself,  who  brought  so  many  disasters 
upon  her  race,  there  is  no  word  of  blame.  Nor 
indeed  is  there  much  blame  for  Paris,  —  she  was 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  39 

so  beautiful  he  could  not  help  his  rash  conduct. 
Even  against  Clytemnestra,  though  a  willing 
accomplice  in  the  crime  of  murder,  there  is  little 
of  evil  said.  The  Greek  attitude,  I  believe,  is  in 
the  main  correct :  whatever  the  woman  is  or 
does,  it  is  the  fault  of  the  man.  We  who  live  in 
these  days  have  no  especial  reason  to  be  proud 
of  our  achievement ;  but  we  shall  see  what  will 
happen  to  the  women  who  in  increasing  numbers 
are  now  taking  their  management  into  their  own 
hands. 

The  two  great  Greek  poems  are  full  of  heroic 
affection  and  indeed  are  founded  upon  it.  It  was  the 
meekness  and  submission  of  the  women  which 
created  the  heroism  in  the  men.  In  order  that  there 
should  be  no  difference  of  opinion  it  was  decreed 
that  the  husband  should  appear  to  rule :  "  There  is 
nothing  better  and  nobler  than  when  husband  and 
wife,  being  of  one  mind,  rule  a  household."  Yet 
the  influence  of  these  meek  women  upon  public 
affairs  was  greater  than  the  influence  of  women 
at  any  time  of  which  we  have  knowledge.  Helen 
and  Briseis  are  the  central  figures  in  the  Trojan 
War ;  Penelope  is  easily  greater  than  Ulysses ; 
Arete  is  the  great  peace-maker  ;  Clytemnestra 
and  Chloris  were  queens  in  the  absence  of  their 
husbands  ;  and  there  is  a  saying  attributed  to 


40  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

Themistocles :  "  All  men  rule  their  wives ;  we 
rule  all  men ;  and  we  are  ruled  by  our  wives." 

There  is  nothing  more  beautiful  in  literature 
than  the  accounts  which  the  great  Greek  writers 
give  of  the  character,  and  conduct,  and  influence 
of  these  women  who  were  without  any  legal  status 
in  the  community.  We  must  except,  of  course, 
some  of  the  comic  writers,  who  then,  as  now,  are 
willing  at  any  cost  to  raise  a  laugh  from  the  gap- 
ing mouths  of  prurient  men  ;  but  even  Aristo- 
phanes boasts  that  he  had  never  put  a  bad  heroine 
in  his  plays,  a  practice  which  the  modern  novelist 
would  do  well  to  emulate.  The  greatness  of  the 
Athenians  was  due  to  the  great  simplicity  of  the 
Athenian  woman  :  and  "  great  is  the  glory  of  that 
woman  who  is  least  talked  of  among  men,  either 
in  the  way  of  praise  or  blame."  They  found  their 
ideal  in  "the  woman  who  stayed  inside  and  was 
obedient  to  her  husband."  Consequently  their 
sons  were  worthy  of  obedience,  which  ours  are 
not. 

But,  more  important,  these  Greek  women  ap- 
pear to  have  been  happy.  Helen  apparently  was 
not  especially  miserable  in  Troy.  She  appears  as 
an  interested  spectator  on  the  walls  of  the  belea- 
guered city ;  and  after  the  death  of  Paris  she 
returns  to  her  husband,  Menelaus,  as  if  nothing 


THE   AMERICAN   WOMAN  41 

unusual  bad  happened.  But  she  was  always  busy, 
twirling  the  distaff  and  plying  the  loom.  A  prin- 
cess did  not  disdain  to  make  the  clothing  for  her 
relatives,  to  embroider  it  beautifully,  and  keep 
it  clean.  That  happy  day  which  Nausicaa  spent 
will  readily  recur  to  the  mind.  It  must  have  been 
a  busy  day  as  she  collected  the  clothes  in  the 
car  and  drove  the  mules,  whip  in  hand,  to  the 
washing-trenches  near  the  river  ;  as  she  with  her 
maiden  attendants  sent  the  mules  to  grass  whilst 
they  trod  the  garments  with  their  feet,  and  spread 
them  out  to  dry.  To  this  they  added  a  picnic, 
a  game  of  ball,  and  singing.  Here  is  a  day  with 
Homeric  girls,  as  Dr.  Donaldson  remarks  with 
pei"haps  more  unction  than  one  would  expect  in 
the  Principal  of  the  University  of  St.  Andrews. 

To  complete  the  demonstration  that  the  pre- 
sent status  of  women  is  not  due  essentially  to 
Christianity,  we  may  cite  the  case  of  the  Roman 
woman.  I  am  not  speaking,  of  course,  of  those 
women  against  whom  Juvenal  levelled  his  satire, 
but  of  those  whom  he  employed  as  standards  of 
true  womanhood,  if  one  must  employ  a  phrase 
which  has  fallen  from  its  high  meaning.  The 
Roman  matron,  unlike  the  Athenian,  was  mis- 
tress in  the  home,  and  was  supreme  in  a  domes- 
tic authority  by  which  she  enforced  diligence  and 


42  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

reverence.  The  course  of  events  was  quite  differ- 
ent in  the  two  cities.  In  Athens  the  woman  re- 
trograded from  a  condition  of  voluntary  captivity 
to  one  of  domestic  restraint.  In  Rome  there  was 
a  progress  from  despotic  control  to  domestic  free- 
dom achieved  by  the  capacity  and  resolution  of 
the  women.  Marriage  became  a  contract  and  free- 
dom was  its  essence.  The  father  gave  to  his 
daughter  a  dowry  which  was  ample  for  her  sup- 
port. Any  other  property  which  she  possessed  re- 
mained entirely  within  her  control,  even  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  contract,  an  event  which  was 
happening  continually.  But  this  parade  of  learn- 
ing merely  enforces  the  truth  that  all  women 
are  much  alike,  and  men  too,  for  the  matter  of 
that,  whether  they  be  Pagans,  Mussulmans,  or 
Christians. 

The  present  situation  of  women  Is  a  result  not 
of  Christianity,  but  of  all  those  forces,  industrial, 
economic,  and  social,  which  go  to  form  what  we 
call  our  civilization;  and  I  suppose  no  one  is  so 
far  left  to  himself  as  to  affirm  that  the  con- 
dition of  society  under  which  we  live  is  a  pre- 
cise and  logical  result  of  the  adoption  of  those 
principles  which  the  Founder  of  Christianity 
enunciated.  To  demonstrate  fully  the  truth  of  this 
assertion  would  be  to  write  the  history  of  civili- 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  43 

zatlon  and  the  history  of  Christianity,  which  is 
not  the  immediate  intention. 

In  point  of  fact  the  position  of  the  woman  after 
four  centuries  of  Christianity  was  more  degraded 
than  it  was  in  the  first.  In  the  narrative  of  the 
Apostles  there  is  much  which  is  charming  in  the 
account  which  is  given  of  her  activities.  The  sis- 
ters of  Bethany,  the  woman  at  the  well,  the  bride 
and  guests  of  Cana,  the  sinner  with  the  box  of 
ointment,  even  the  women  of  the  Garden  were 
thoroughly  humane  persons,  and  the  family  life 
was  sound.  These  were  humble,  decent  people, 
however,  and  the  greatest  fallacy  in  history  is  to 
judge  the  conduct  of  the  people  of  whom  we  know 
nothing  by  the  conduct  of  those  of  whom  we  hear 
a  great  deal.  To  make  such  inference  is  as  absurd, 
I  say  it  with  a  reiteration  which  must  be  tiresome, 
as  if  we  were  to  measure  the  life  of  the  home-lov- 
ing women  of  America  by  the  standards  which 
prevail  in  the  heart  of  her  whom  I  have  chosen 
with  some  degree  of  ambiguity,  it  may  be,  to  clas- 
sify apart  as  the  "American  Woman." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  persons  to  whom  the 
message  came  late  in  the  first  century  were  the 
offscouring  of  the  Greek  cities :  adulterers,  drunk- 
ards, and  others  who  were  guilty  of  practices  which 
are  not  so  much  as  named  amongst  ourselves.  At 


44  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

least  this  Is  the  description  which  Paul  gives  of 
his  early  followers:  "Such  were  some  of  you." 
To  the  Greeks  religion  was  an  affair  of  ritual. 
Henceforth  it  was  to  be  a  sanctification  of  the 
body,  and  unchastity,  as  being  the  most  obvious 
of  all  lusts,  was  discredited.  Horrified  by  the 
promiscuity  of  living  which  he  witnessed,  Paul 
went  to  the  opposite  extreme  and  put  on  the 
character  of  the  rabbi,  the  monk,  the  ascetic. 
Besides,  he  was  under  the  impression  that  the 
world  w;as  so  near  its  end,  it  was  not  worth  the 
trouble  of  adding  to  the  race.  There  were  already 
enough  in  jeopardy  of  their  souls.  He  declared 
that  there  is  something  unclean  in  marriage ;  that 
marriage  defiles  both  parties  to  it;  that  at  best 
it  is  a  compromise  between  chastity  and  the  weak- 
ness of  the  flesh,  better  than  one  thing,  worse  than 
another,  but  that  celibacy  and  virginity  are  best 
of  all,  for  which  he  is  not  forgiven  by  women  even 
to  this  day.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  observation,  in 
these  days  at  least,  that  bachelors  are  spiritually 
minded  above  all  men. 

The  Greek  view  of  life  led  to  immorality.  Paul 
chose  a  different  path ;  he  ended  by  a  clear  per- 
ception of  the  conditions  suitable  for  a  healthy 
and  faithful  family  life,  in  which  the  children  at 
least  should  be  holy ;  and  yet  one  of  the  most  pite- 


THE   AMERICAN   WOMAN  45 

ous  things  in  history  is  the  tragedy  of  domestic 
life  disrupted  by  the  entrance  of  a  religion  which 
compelled  a  brother  to  deliver  up  a  brother  to 
death,  and  the  father  his  child,  which  set  a  man 
at  variance  with  his  father,  the  daughter  against 
her  mother  and  the  daughter-in-law  against  her 
mother-in-law,  and  when  a  man's  foes  most  to  be 
feared  were  those  of  his  own  household.  In  face 
of  this  declaration  we  need  not  go  to  Tertullian 
to  find  that  the  event  fell  out  no  otherwise. 

Though  towards  the  end  of  his  life  Paul  modi- 
fied his  earlier  opinions,  perhaps  under  the  influ- 
ence of  those  female  fellow-labourers  of  whom  he 
speaks  so  handsomely,  by  the  fourth  century  they 
had  regained  full  force  in  the  Church,  and  one 
Father  at  least,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  is  so  down- 
right in  his  utterances  that  they  may  well  be  left 
in  the  indecency  of  the  original  Latin  in  which 
they  were  written. 

One  could  fill  a  book  with  the  denunciations  of 
women  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
the  Christian  Fathers  for  five  hundred  years,  and 
they  are  directed  not  against  a  limited  class,  nor 
against  any  particular  misconduct,  —  as  is  the 
practice  of  all  the  satirists,  —  but  against  women 
as  a  whole.  Much  of  it  is  vulgar  abuse,  and  much 
is  savage  ferocity.  Children  shared  equally  in  this 


46  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

theological  hatred,  and  in  the  first  five  centuries 
of  Christian  literature  there  is  no  suggestion  of 
family  life,  of  domestic  felicity,  in  a  word,  of  the 
home.  Women  and  children  were  banished  from 
the  world  of  Christianity,  and  the  inevitable  result 
occurred.  The  theological  male,  unappeased  by 
the  female,  and  untouched  by  the  appealing  help- 
lessness of  the  child,  developed  a  ferocity  of  na- 
ture which  showed  itself  eventually  in  the  auto- 
da-fe,  and  which  has  been  extinguished  only  in 
our  own  time.  It  is  through  the  revival  of  natural, 
family  affection,  a  virtue  which  is  Pagan  as  well 
as  Christian,  that  women  have  finally  attained  to 
eqnal  consideration.  When  affection  diminishes, 
that  balance  is  disturbed. 

The  position  of  the  woman  in  the  early  Church 
was  a  subject  of  bitter  controversy,  until  it  was 
set  at  rest  by  the  great  Apostle.  Paul,  himself 
an  Oriental,  though  brought  up  in  a  Hellenic 
and  Roman  environment,  was  scandalized  by  the 
conduct  of  the  Greek  women  in  the  assemblages. 
They  would  not  keep  quiet,  neither  would  they 
speak  one  at  a  time.  To  allow  the  men  to  speak 
was  out  of  the  question.  Accustomed  to  the  seclu- 
sion and  seemliness  in  which  his  own  womenkind 
dwelt,  he  was  offended  by  the  shamelessness  of 
the  Greek  costume,  and  he  set  forth  that  dogma 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  47 

in  which  is  contained  one  of  those  main  ideas  of 
which  I  was  speaking :  The  woman  who  has  a  veil 
on  her  head  wears  authority  on  her  head. 

The  East  had  meditated  long  upon  the  au- 
thority of  the  woman,  and  concluded  that  it  was 
enhanced  if  it  was  allowed  to  remain  mysterious. 
With  all  our  pretensions  to  a  chivalrous  adora- 
tion of  that  quality  which  in  the  United  States  is 
called  "  womanhood,"  we  do  not  yield  to  women 
such  deference  as  is  paid  to  the  humblest  Eastern 
peasant  so  long  as  she  wears  the  veil.  They  suffer 
by  not  hearing  the  truth.  For  the  sake  of  peace 
feeble  men  make  it  their  business  to  console  them ; 
and  as  Dr.  Trublet  remarks  in"L'Histoire  Co- 
mique,"  how  can  you  console  a  person  without 
adopting  the  practice  of  lying?  Not  deference 
but  flattery  and  fatuous  adulation  is  the  portion 
of  the  Western  woman,  because  her  authority  is 
weakened,  whilst  the  history  of  the  East  is  filled 
with  accounts,  strange  to  us,  of  the  influence  of 
women  upon  men  and  events.  The  names  of 
Herodias,  Jezebel,  and  Eve  will  again  recur  to 
the  mind. 

The  veil  of  the  Eastern  woman  is  a  sign  of  her 
mystery.  When  she  discards  the  veil,  her  sanc- 
tity, her  honour,  her  dignity,  her  authority  all 
vanish.  I  shall  not  be  guilty  of  the  absurdity 


48  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

whicli  there  would  be  in  recommending  that 
women  who  of  an  afternoon  drive  in  the  Park  or 
walk  in  the  Avenue  should  swathe  their  heads  in 
Oriental  wrapping ;  but  the  light  can  be  a  veil 
as  well  as  the  dai^kness.  In  a  brilliant  room  one 
sees  nothing  of  the  foulness  which  lurks  without. 
Every  woman  is  created  with  a  veil.  She  is  an 
eternal  mystery,  as  even  Byron  confessed  after 
his  assiduous  research.  Gentleness,  and  goodness, 
and  continual  quietness,  and  beauty  of  nature  are 
always  mysterious.  I  am  not  saying  that  all  wo- 
men are  in  possession  of  these  qualities.  Indeed 
it  is  the  very  absence  of  them  which  makes  the 
veil  a  greater  necessity.  The  assemblage  of  boys 
with  girls  for  education,  as  it  is  called  with  some 
degree  of  assumption,  withdraws  the  veil  and 
serves  to  dispel  this  mystery.  The  rude  comrade- 
ship which  athletics  engender  is  based  upon  the 
performance  of  physical  feats  in  which  the  woman 
is  always  at  a  disadvantage,  and  so  is  inferior. 

Finally,  those  Platonic  friendships  between 
young  men  and  young  women,  which,  according 
to  the  judicious  saying  of  the  Master  of  Peter- 
house,  are  always  silly  and  sometimes  dangerous, 
weaken  the  force  of  the  old  truth,  that,  male  and 
female  created  he  them.  Little  by  little  the  mys- 
tery is  dispelled — by  a  furtive  glance,  a  word, 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  49 

an  apparently  accidental  touch.  The  veil  is  rent, 
and  the  woman  is  naked  and  ashamed,  or  un- 
ashamed, as  the  case  may  be. 

A  man  expects  very  little  of  a  woman,  nothing 
more  than  that  she  shall  willingly  receive  kind- 
ness at  his  hands,  that  she  will  permit  herself  to 
be  loved.  Little  as  this  is,  it  is  much.  Without  it 
he  is  condemned  to  a  brutish  isolation,  wandering 
between  the  confines  of  asceticism  and  profligacy. 
Human  civilization,  which  appears  to  our  minds 
as  a  very  imposing  affair,  is  possibly  the  result  of 
circumstances  which  may  have  been  little  more 
than  fortuitous.  It  is  surmised  that  agriculture 
had  its  beginnings  in  the  desire  for  alcohol,  and 
that  the  wearing  of  clothes  was  a  result  of  the 
discovery  that  articles  of  adornment  gave  a  sense 
of  warmth.  Similarly,  I  think  that  all  the  graces 
of  our  civilization,  all  those  acquired  characteris- 
tics which  distinguished  men  from  beasts,  arose 
from  the  desire  to  win  this  privilege  of  bestowing 
affection. 

It  is  not  the  love  of  the  woman  for  the  man,  but 
the  love  of  the  man  for  everything,  the  woman  in- 
cluded, which  redeems  him.  This  dark  saying  is 
elucidated  by  that  revelation  of  human  experience 
which  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  jruise  of  the 
Faust  legend,  not  the  debased  thing  as  presented 


50  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

by  Gounod,  which  we,  with  our  capacity  for  being 
exactly  wrong,  call  "  Faust  "  and  the  Germans  in 
derision  designate  "Margarethe."  This  "Faust" 
of  ours,  as  Professor  Patchett  so  acutely  observes, 
is  nothing  more  than  the  account  of  the  seduction 
of  an  ingenuous  girl  by  a  rejuvenated  professor 
having  the  powers  of  hell  at  his  command.  The 
Faust  of  Goethe  attains  to  mastery  over  himself 
through  the  "  ewig-weibliche,"  the  eternal  femi- 
nine, the  woman-soul,  which  is  synonymous  with 
love  into  which  the  element  of  sex  does  not  intrude 
itself.  It  is  the  complete  abnegation  of  all  selfish- 
ness. There  is  nothing  new  in  this  either :  it  is 
precisely  the  doctrine  of  perfect  love  which  Jesus 
taught. 

The  "  American  Woman  "  thinks  the  American 
man  is  as  good  as  he  is  because  she  loves  him  so 
much.  She  is  so  self-satisfied,  she  thinks  that  every- 
one must  love  her  and  must  continue  to  love  her, 
entirely  irrespective  of  the  conduct  which  she  may 
choose  to  indulge  in.  A  husband  who  should  cease 
to  love  so  glorious  a  creature  must  be  a  fool  whose 
love  is  not  worth  striving  to  retain.  She  is  fond 
of  boasting  of  her  womanly  influence  for  good ; 
and  yet  no  public  life  is  more  corrupt  than  that 
which  she  dominates,  no  domestic  life  more  thin, 
and  narrow,  and  poor. 


THE  AMERICAN   WOMAN  51 

Men  have  always  known  wherein  this  authority 
lay  and  the  power  which  it  possessed ;  but  women 
have  never  been  satisfied  with  the  explanation 
which  they  received.  They  have  been  looking  con- 
tinually for  a  fresh  solution  of  a  problem  which 
was  solved  before  Solomon  was  yet  born.  They 
suspected  that  their  authority  lay  in  education, 
and  they  tried  that ;  in  a  new  legal  status,  and 
enactments  were  made  ;  in  admission  to  all  trades 
and  professions,  and  the  doors  were  opened.  The 
latest  guess  is  that  this  authority  will  be  perma- 
nently fixed  by  the  right  to  put  a  piece  of  paper  in 
a  ballot-box ;  and  yet  I  fear  that  their  experience 
will  be  that  of  the  aged  negro  who  had  exercised 
this  precious  function  for  the  first  time.  When 
the  mysterious  rite  was  completed  and  nothing 
happened,  he  turned  to  the  guardian  of  the  poll 
and  enquired  pathetically,  "  Is  that  all,  boss  ?  " 

The  influence  of  woman  is  the  subject  of  all 
verse,  and  is  best  expressed  by  the  word  "  charm." 
The  matter  has  full  discussion  in  that  debate 
which  is  recorded  in  the  Book  of  Esdras  as  having 
taken  place  in  the  second  year  of  the  reign  of 
Darius  the  King,  at  a  time,  it  may  be  remarked, 
when  our  own  ancestors  were  occupying  their 
minds  with  less  intellectual  pursuits.  The  ques- 
tion was :  "  What  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the 


52  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

world  ?  —  wine,  the  king,  woman,  or  truth."  The 
argument  is  very  familiar:  "Do  not  men  labour 
and  toil  and  give  and  bring  all  to  the  woman  ? 
Yea,  the  man  taketh  his  sword  and  goeth  his 
way  to  rob  and  to  steal,  to  sail  upon  the  sea  and 
upon  rivers  ;  and  when  he  hath  stolen,  spoiled, 
and  robbed,  he  bringeth  it  all  to  his  love.  What 
power  hath  reason  against  her  charm  ?  " 

And  what  is  charm  ?  Certain  things  it  is  not. 
It  is  not  excessive  talkativeness,  nor  that  distor- 
tion of  the  countenance  in  public  places  which  is 
called  laughter.  Not  intellectual  attainment  nor 
the  artistic  temperament  ensures  its  possession.  It 
does  not  necessarily  lie  in  the  physical  beauty  of 
a  symmetrical  musculature.  Teeth,  and  ej'es,  and 
hair  are  mere  epidermal  modifications.  Charm  is 
everything  which  the  "  American  Woman  "  thinks 
it  is  not ;  charm  lies  in  what  a  woman  is,  not  in 
what  she  does,  nor  in  how  she  looks.  I  am  not 
sufficiently  instructed  to  hazard  an  opinion  upon 
the  question  whether  this  charm  is  as  general  and 
as  potent  as  it  used  to  be,  although  there  is  some 
evidence  which  is  not  confirmatory  in  what  one 
hears,  and  in  what  one  reads  in  the  law  reports 
and  in  the  poet-books.  And  what  has  a  man  to 
offer  a  woman  in  return  for  her  adorable  quali- 
ties?  Nothing  beyond  this,  that  "the  husband 


THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN  53 

render  to  the  wife  due  benevolence."  By  no  pro- 
cess of  bargaining  can  she  obtain  more. 

The  American  women  —  all  women  —  should 
turn  upon  the  "American  Woman"  as  judges  and 
executioners,  with  cold,  deliberate  indignation,  in 
such  virgin  fury  as  the  workers  in  the  hive  dis- 
play towards  the  great,  idle,  sugary-mouthed 
drones  unconscious  on  the  melliferous  walls. 
And  happily,  there  is  evidence  that  the  people 
are  tired  of  the  farce,  that  the  lights  are  out  and 
the  audience  gone  home.  This  revulsion  of  feel- 
ing is  led  by  the  really  educated  women,  who  are 
willing  to  confess  that  even  they  themselves  have 
missed  the  mark  and  that  their  humbler  sisters 
have  chosen  the  better  part.  For  the  ignorant 
and  newly  rich  the  educated  women  have  nothing 
but  compassion  :  for  those  who  would  emancipate 
themselves  from  the  law  they  have  infinite  scorn. 

The  woman  who  is  happy  is  she  who  obeys  the 
law  of  kindness,  who  goes  quietly.  Her  husband 
yields  her  benevolence.  His  heart  doth  safely 
trust  in  her,  and  her  children  call  her  blessed. 
The  woman  who  will  prevail  is  the  effeminate 
woman,  who  overcomes  man  by  the  force  of  con- 
tinual quietness.  She  may  understand  all  know- 
ledge and  have  strength  to  remove  all  public  griev- 
ances ;  yet  she  is  nothing,  if  she  has  not  entered 


54  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

into  the  mystery  of  gentleness.  The  woman  who 
suffers  long  and  is  kind,  who  envietli  not,  who 
vaunteth  not  herself  and  is  not  puffed  up,  who 
does  not  behave  herself  unseemly,  who  seeketh 
not  her  own,  who  thinketh  no  evil,  beareth  all 
things  and  is  not  easily  provoked,  —  it  is  she  who 
finally  attains  to  consideration. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUF- 
FRAGETTE 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE 
SUFFRAGETTE 

Few  problems  are  so  simple  as  they  seem.  Indeed 
all  questions  are  one  question,  and  the  ready 
answer  which  appears  final  may  be  entirely 
inadequate  when  the  enquiry  is  enlarged  to  its 
proper  bounds.  An  imperfect  reason  is  worse  than 
no  reason  at  all.  If,  for  example,  the  function  of 
voting  has  not,  up  to  the  present  time,  been  en- 
trusted to  women,  it  is  because  the  case  in  favour 
of  that  measure  has  not  been  properly  presented. 

The  argument  has  been  too  feminine,  too  easily 
met.  If  we  say  that  women  should  have  the  privi- 
lege of  voting,  we  are  struck  with  the  retort  that 
voting  is  not  a  privilege  but  a  duty.  If  we  point 
to  the  anomaly  of  a  woman,  intellectual  as  George 
Eliot  and  sensitive  as  Mrs.  Browning,  being 
deprived  of  a  privilege  which  her  husband's 
valet  enjoys,  the  explanation  is  offered  that  the 
difficulty  may  be  solved  as  well  by  taking  the 
vote  away  from  the  man  as  by  giving  it  to  the 
woman. 

When  we  protest  that  the  suffrage  should  be 
conferred  upon  the  married  woman  who  in  her 


58  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

own  right  is  in  possession  of  property,  we  are  in- 
formed that  the  family,  not  the  individual,  is  the 
unit  of  society ;  and  if  we  restrict  our  demand  to 
votes  for  unmarried  women  alone,  we  involve  our- 
selves in  a  controversy  with  the  friends  of  Mrs. 
Browning,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  George  Eliot, 
on  the  other,  to  say  nothing  of  the  members  of 
that  most  ancient  of  all  professions,  who  must  be 
considerable  property  owners  to  pay  the  contri- 
butions which  are  habitually  imposed  upon  them. 
If  a  property  qualification  would  admit  Judas, 
universal  suffrage  would  admit  the  Woman  at  the 
Well;  but  the  principle  of  votes  for  married 
women  would  involve  us  in  a  consideration  of 
their  matrimonial  status,  about  which  there  might 
well  be  a  difference  of  opinion,  especially  in  a 
community  like  the  United  States  of  America,  in 
which  one  marriage  out  of  every  twelve  is  termi- 
nated by  divorce. 

We  plead  that  wage-earning  women  who  are 
economically  independent  of  men  by  reason  of 
their  labour  in  shop,  office,  and  factory  should  no 
longer  be  compelled  to  remain  voiceless :  the  dis- 
sentients reply  that  the  presence  of  women  in 
those  capacities  is  an  anomaly  of  civilization,  which 
will  not  be  remedied  by  the  creation  of  a  fresh 
anomaly.  When  we  offer  them  one  of  these  alter- 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  69 

natives :  If  women  are  different  from  men,  repre- 
sentative government  without  including  them  is 
incompletely  representative  of  the  State  ;  If  wo- 
men are  the  same  as  men,  then  presumably  they 
have  the  same  need  to  vote  as  men,  —  they  suggest 
that  we  substitute  "lunatics"  for  "women"  and 
see  how  the  propositions  read. 

As  answer  to  our  argument  that  a  woman  who 
has  acquired  a  University  degree  is  more  likely 
to  vote  intelligently  than  a  man  who  is  unable  to 
decipher  the  name  of  a  candidate  upon  the  ballot 
and  whose  attainment  in  writing  does  not  extend 
beyond  the  capacity  to  sign  his  name  with  a  cross, 
we  are  informed  with  coarse  brutality  that  the 
propriety  of  a  college  education  for  women  is 
problematical  and  its  advantage  a  matter  of  pure 
surmise.  And  finally,  if  we  protest  that  character 
is  the  supreme  test  of  fitness  to  vote  or  hold  office, 
we  are  filled  with  apprehension  against  the  day 
when  the  fierce  light  of  publicity  will  beat  upon 
the  Woman  at  the  Booth,  when  opposing  news- 
papers will  investigate  her  conduct  to  ascertain  if 
she  is  truthful  in  her  declarations  before  the  Cus- 
toms ;  for  example,  if  she  rules  well  her  own  house- 
hold, having  children  and  having  them  in  subjec- 
tion, the  wife  of  one  husband,  of  good  behaviour, 
patient,  not  a  brawler,  not  double-tongued,  grave, 


60  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

sober,  faithful  in  all  things.  The  feminine  char- 
acter is  notoriously  difficult  of  investigation,  and 
it  must  be  estimated  according  to  the  fine  standard 
of  feminine  perfection,  and  not  by  the  coarse 
attainment  of  the  best  of  public  men. 

If  we  rely  upon  authority  and  appeal  to  John 
Stuart  Mill,  our  opponents  remind  us  that  this 
great  moralist  attained  to  a  surety  of  conviction 
upon  the  propriety  of  female  suffrage  only  after 
he  had  come  under  the  ministration  of  that  humane 
person,  Mrs.  Taylor,  "  a  woman  of  surpassing 
excellence,  who  lived  generally  apart  from  her 
husband." 

When  the  enemies  of  woman  suffrage  have  de- 
parted from  this  attitude  of  stolid  indifference  or 
obstinate  contradiction  and  put  forward  initial 
objections  of  their  own,  we  have  always  been  able 
to  make  reply.  They  protest  that  the  polling- 
booth,  the  legislative  chamber,  and  the  barber's 
shop  are  no  fit  resorts  for  women ;  and  we  call  to 
their  attention  that  women  have  made  themselves 
perfectly  at  home  in  other  environments  which 
appeared  at  first  sight  to  be  equally  uncongenial, 
in  the  club,  in  street-processions,  and  in  the 
smoking-room  of  steamers. 

Not  content  with  contradiction,  they  have  resort 
to  mockery,  alleging  that,  if  women  had  votes, 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     61 

they  would  cast  them  for  the  candidate  who  had 
a  fine  general  aspect  and  an  external  appearance 
which  was  pleasing.  It  is  our  sufficient  answer 
that  candidates  are  elected  by  the  present  method 
for  reasons  which  are  equally  flimsy,  and  that 
under  the  new  arrangements  a  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives would  be  composed  of  men  who  would 
at  least  be  beautiful,  whereas  to-day  they  are 
neither  beautiful  nor  good.  They  charge  that  a 
man  who  has  a  wife  and  daughter  would  then 
have  three  votes  instead  of  one ;  yet  that  is  not 
more  unreasonable  than  the  present  arrangement 
under  which  men  purchase  voters  and  send  them 
to  the  polls  like  driven  cattle.  When  mockery 
fails  they  descend  to  ridicule  even  of  martyrs, 
laughter  at  heroines,  and  mirth,  because  a  suffra- 
gette of  her  own  volition  assumed  and  continues 
to  bear  the  name  of  Catt. 

Having  now  at  the  expense  of  some  labour 
cleared  the  ground,  I  shall  endeavour  to  set  forth 
the  psychology  of  the  suffragette,  not  in  the  in- 
terest of  pure  science  so  much  as  with  the  inten- 
tion of  discovering  if  an  examination  of  the  female 
nature  will  not  yield  a  fundamental  reason  why 
such  women  as  so  desire  should  be  permitted  to 
vote,  to  hold  office,  and  to  engage  in  public  life. 
To  warrant  so  important  a  departure  from  the 


62  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

established  order  of  society,  nothing  less  than  a 
fundamental  reason  will  suffice  ;  that  is,  one  which 
has  been  valid  ever  since  the  advent  of  life  upon 
the  earth,  or,  at  any  rate,  of  beings  which  have 
the  appearance  of  movement. 

Of  this  creation  we  have  two  accounts.  The 
one  is  given  by  a  Semitic  writer  of  Lower  Asia, 
whose  name  is  unknown  to  us.  The  other,  which 
is  the  more  commonly  received,  is  closely  identi- 
fied with  the  name  of  Professor  MacBride.  The 
two  accounts  may  be  reconciled  by  assuming  that 
the  word  "  beginning  "  means  a  second  beginning. 
By  this  easy  device  of  exegesis  we  discover  that 
in  Professor  MacBride's  "beginning"  there  was 
neither  male  nor  female,  nothing'  but  a  neutral 
protoplasmic  mass.  In  the  second  "  beginning " 
there  was  a  differentiation  between  the  two  sexes. 

Leaving  the  ground  of  authority,  and  appeal- 
ing to  scientific  experience,  we  shall  discover  that 
the  male  was  developed  out  of  this  mass  with 
special  characteristics  for  the  convenience  of  the 
less  modified  organism  which  remained.  A  timely 
confirmation  of  this  statement  arises  out  of  Dr. 
Rumley  Dawson's  recent  discovery  in  physiology, 
that  the  causation  of  sex  lies  entirely  with  the  fe- 
male ;  and  we  can  well  understand  why  she  should 
be  so  resolute  to  preserve  the  type  which  she  has 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     63 

created,  by  offering  to  the  most  manly  the  prize 
of  her  possession,  and  passing  over  the  type  which 
has  the  closest  resemblance  to  her  own. 

And  yet,  it  is  only  for  convenience  we  assume 
that  nature  works  within  rigid  bounds.  We  speak 
of  spring,  summer,  autumn,  and  winter  for  the 
benefit  of  those  who  sow  seed,  pay  rent,  and  per- 
form the  other  duties  of  society,  whereas  in  real- 
ity there  are  no  recurring  seasons,  but  an  unend- 
ing progress  of  time.  This  division  of  living 
beings  into  male  and  female  is  also  a  fiction.  All 
we  should  say  is  that  the  characteristics  of  the 
male  or  of  the  female  are  especially  predominant 
in  any  given  individual.  The  truth  of  this  state- 
ment is  apparent  if  we  scan  the  range  of  plant 
life  ;  and  even  in  the  case  of  the  lower  animals  it 
is  only  a  little  less  obvious.  That  is  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge,  but  its  cogency  when  applied 
to  ourselves  demands  a  word  by  way  of  illustra- 
tion. There  are  persons  who  are  anatomically 
males  and  psychically  females,  that  is,  with  the 
outward  appearance  of  men  and  the  minds  of 
women.  They  write  letters  to  the  newspapers,  and 
the  most  experienced  editor  falls  into  error  in 
determining  the  sex  of  the  writer.  These  persons 
who  lack  in  maleness  always  ally  themselves  with 
women  who  possess  the  quality  in  which  they 


64  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

are  deficient,  and  between  the  two  the  proper 
complement  is  established. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  the  residue  of  the  male 
element  in  the  female  which  strives  to  express  it- 
self by  the  assumption  of  manly  garb,  voice,  ges- 
ture, and  conduct ;  though  it  is  much  easier  for 
a  man  to  become  a  woman  than  it  is  for  a  woman 
to  become  a  man.  In  each  there  is  something  of 
the  other,  but  what  that  amount  is  in  any  one 
individual  could  be  determined  only  by  a  close 
scrutiny  and  comparison  with  the  results  obtained 
in  a  large  number  of  observed  cases.  Certain 
investigations  demand  minuteness  of  enquiry, 
others,  largeness  of  view.  One  might  well  write 
a  monograph  upon  the  camel,  the  ostrich,  or  the 
centaur  based  upon  the  results  of  a  scientific  ex- 
amination of  a  few  specimens,  which  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  would  be  quite  complete  and  have  great 
value.  This  is  the  work  of  the  anatomist  in  zo- 
ology, or  of  the  morphologist  in  botany,  who  con- 
siders the  lily  in  his  laboratory  rather  than  in  the 
field.  The  anthropologist  who  deals  with  mankind 
in  the  mass,  or  the  systemic  botanist  must  not 
taunt  his  fellow-investigator  with  want  of  experi- 
ence in  his  own  peculiar  department,  who  is  de- 
barred by  lack  of  facilities  or  even  of  inclination 
from  makinjr  large  numerical  observations. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  65 

The  male  is  what  horticulturists  designate  as 
a  sport,  with  an  ineradicable  tendency  to  revert 
to  the  female  type,  which  is  the  more  stable  of 
the  two,  less  sensitive  and  therefore  capable  of 
enduring  discomfort,  less  intelligent  and  there- 
fore guided  more  by  instinct  than  by  reason,  less 
troubled  by  those  emotions  which  lead  to  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  good  of  the  whole,  more  endur- 
ing because  less  dominated  by  those  principles 
which  are  known  as  morality.  Every  civilization 
which  has  passed  away  proceeded  by  the  road  to 
effeminacy.  That  is  the  teaching  of  history,  and 
it  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  in  the  in- 
dividual who  is  becoming  less  virile.  He  forsakes 
his  fellows  for  the  companionship  of  a  woman. 
He  displays  an  extreme  and  foolish  fondness,  an 
extravagant  and  servile  devotion,  which  goes  by 
the  name  of  uxoriousness.  The  phenomenon  is 
observed  at  every  age,  but  is  most  common  in  the 
extremes  of  life.  We  have  all  observed  the  young 
husband  who  is  blissfully  content  with  the  func- 
tions of  a  lady's  maid,  and  the  old  man  whose 
domestic  duties  are  mainly  those  of  a  "  hooker 
up,"  as  that  humble  office  is  technically  called. 
In  his  occasional  intercourse  with  men  he  misses 
the  adulation  to  which  he  is  accustomed,  and 
becomes  at  first  dogmatic,  then  truculent,  and 


66  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

finally  by  common  consent  is  expelled  from  male 
society. 

The  disturbance  of  this  balance  between  the 
sexes  is  more  exaggerated  in  certain  periods  of 
history  than  in  others.  It  was  most  marked  at 
those  stages  of  civilization  in  which  the  matri- 
archal theory  of  government  prevailed.  This  oc- 
curred at  a  time  when  humanity  was  emerging 
from  savagery,  when  the  chase  as  a  means  of  live- 
lihood was  giving  way  to  agricultural  pursuits 
and  the  domestication  of  animals,  when  articles 
of  adornment  had  fallen  from  their  high  purpose 
and  bred  the  debasing  necessity  for  the  warmth 
and  comfort  of  clothing.  These  three  offices  of 
caring  for  animals,  planting  seeds,  and  making 
clothes  naturally  fell  to  women.  The  calf,  lamb, 
or  kid,  an  accidental  product  of  the  chase,  was 
brought  home  to  the  cave  as  an  object  of  interest. 
Its  gambols  of  joy  or  its  contortions  in  pain  were 
amusing  to  the  women  and  children,  and  its  life 
was  preserved  as  a  solace  from  the  tedium  of 
winter.  From  this  it  was  an  easy  discovery  that 
the  animal  might  reproduce  its  kind  and  afford, 
by  the  food  products  which  it  yielded,  sustenance 
in  time  of  need,  and  warmth  after  its  body  was 
skinned  and  eaten.  By  an  equally  fortuitous 
circumstance  the  advantages  of  a  stable  supply 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     67 

of  fruits  from  the  earth  must  have  been  discovered. 
The  labour  of  the  chase,  which  began  as  a  sport 
and  ended  as  a  necessity,  became  a  piece  of  sport 
again,  to  which  the  man  might  devote  himself  with 
pleasure  unalloyed  by  the  fear  of  hunger.  But 
even  a  life  of  pure  sport  eventually  palls  upon 
one,  and  the  primitive  man  lapsed  into  a  condi- 
tion of  idleness  in  which  he  was  so  inert  that 
women  were  obliged  to  imdertake  the  business  of 
government  as  well  as  of  industry.  They  domi- 
nated the  religious  system  also;  and  the  deities  of 
that  period  are  always  female.  From  this  we  may 
deduce  the  law  that  the  authority  of  the  woman 
prevails  in  direct  proportion  to  her  usefulness. 

Men  who  are  idle  become  debased.  They  for- 
sake the  quest  of  their  hard  ideal  and  turn  aside 
upon  an  easier  way.  By  inertia  alone  they  tend  to 
exaggerate  the  female  element  in  themselves  and 
to  become  like  women.  This  glorification  of  the 
feminine  finds  its  most  modern  expression  in  the 
tenets  of  that  new  American  sect  set  apart  by  a 
woman,  which  contends  that  its  founder  has  inter- 
preted the  feminine  idea  of  God  as  eTesus  inter- 
preted the  masculine  idea.  To  this  is  added  the 
inconsequential  corollary  that  the  feminine  is  the 
higher  of  the  two  ;  and  there  is  an  illuminating 
revelation  of  a  somewhat  general  mind  upon  the 


68  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

question  of  motherhood  in  their  theory  that  this 
woman  by  a  process  of  immaculate  conception 
brought  forth  a  book.  As  if  anticipating  the  ques- 
tion, her  great  apologist  admits,  "  You  may  ask 
why  this  child  did  not  come  in  human  form  as 
did  the  Child  of  old,"  and  he  supplies  the  answer : 
"  Because  it  was  not  necessary."  Out  of  a  plain 
New  England  woman  they  have  made  a  great 
wonder  in  heaven,  a  woman  clothed  with  the  sun, 
and  upon  her  head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars,  de- 
livering the  child  which  shall  heal  all  nations. 
At  least  that  is  how  it  appears  in  their  own  writ- 
ings and  painted  windows.  This  sentiment  is  a 
pure  revival  of  paganism  and  recurs  continually. 
It  brought  the  worship  of  the  woman  into  the 
Church  during  the  renascence  which  occurred  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  when  the  deity  was  expressed 
by  the  term  Dea.  One  may  agree  that  women  are 
saints,  and  yet  have  a  hesitancy  of  conviction  that 
they  are  gods. 

Women  have  a  sure  instinct  that  this  natural 
tendency  of  men  to  exaggerate  the  feminine  idea 
and  to  become  like  women  is  perilous  to  the  race. 
It  is  women  alone  who  prevent  it  from  dominat- 
ing the  world,  on  account  of  their  own  inherent 
distrust  in  it.  This  is  well  shown  by  the  secret  pity 
which  a  woman  entertains  for  a  man  who  is  about 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     69 

to  unite  himself  for  life  with  one  of  her  own  sex. 
A  woman  marries  for  the  substantial  reason  that 
she  is  enamoured  of  the  institution  of  marriage  : 
a  man  marries  because  a  certain  personality  is 
attractive  to  him.  If  he  would  discover  how  flimsy 
this  reason  appears  to  the  woman  who  is  the  object 
of  attraction,  he  has  only  to  hear  the  comments 
which  are  made  as  she  regales  her  friends  with  a 
revelation  of  his  mind  as  exposed  in  those  writ- 
ings which  are  commonly  known  as  "love-letters" 
and  occasionally  as  "exhibits." 

If,  now,  we  can  discover  that  the  exercise  by 
women  of  the  function  of  voting  will  tend  to  pre- 
serve the  male  idea  from  merging  into  the  femi- 
nine, the  case  in  favour  of  female  suffrage  will  be 
advanced,  even  if  we  are  obliged  to  abandon  the 
ground  upon  which  the  measure  has  been  defended, 
namely,  that  it  would  make  for  efficiency  of  gov- 
ernment and  do  something  to  remove  the  disabil- 
ities which  women  as  well  as  men  now  endure. 
Suffragettes  have  come  to  believe  that  there  is 
something  thaumaturgic  or  at  least  sacramentary 
in  the  act  of  voting,  that  it  has  an  inherent  effi- 
cacy and  would  confer  upon  public  life  an  in- 
ward and  spiritual  grace,  whilst  in  reality  it  is 
merely  an  ordinance  without  sanctity,  an  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  something  which  may  have  no 


70  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

existence,  and  may  be  fraught  with  damnation  to 
those  who  perform  it  unworthily. 

Voting  is  merely  a  method  of  expressing  an 
opinion.  The  result  is  good  or  bad,  depending 
upon  the  correctness  of  the  opinions  which  the 
voters  entertain  and  their  ability  to  enforce  them. 
The  method  has  worked  well  in  certain  cases, 
namely,  those  in  which  communities  had  discov- 
ered the  true  principles  of  public  policy  by  long 
ages  of  experience  in  public  affairs,  by  living  a 
life  of  freedom,  resolute  to  maintain  it  even  at 
the  cost  of  sacrificing  the  individual  life.  Certain 
tribes  from  the  shores  of  the  North  Sea  which 
afterwards  developed  into  the  Anglo-Saxon  race 
earned  their  freedom  by  remaining  free.  Every 
man  voted.  The  reeve  with  four  men  from  each 
township  appeared  at  the  hundred-mot  to  enforce 
an  opinion  which  was  in  reality  a  derivative  from 
the  need  and  art  of  fighting.  Other  communi- 
ties seized  this  weapon  without  paying  the  price 
and  it  broke  in  their  hands.  The  negroes  of  the 
United  States  had  the  duty  of  voting  thrust 
upon  them  ;  and  one  would  be  naive  indeed  who 
should  say  that  their  condition  was  improved 
thereby,  or  that  they  brought  any  great  accession 
of  wisdom  to  the  public  councils.  I  am  afraid 
that  the  women  who  profess  to  believe  that  all 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     71 

things  will  be  made  new  by  the  easy  device  of 
voting  are  following  their  senses  under  the  delu- 
sion that  they  are  following  the  inexorable  logic 
of  a  long  experience. 

It  is  only  those  who  are  engaged  in  practical 
politics  who  are  aware  how  small  a  part  voting 
plays  in  the  operation  of  government,  and  they 
have  devised  an  elaborate  machinery  to  prevent 
an  expression  of  public  opinion,  or  to  thwart  it 
in  the  event  of  its  getting  out  of  hand.  Many 
women  are  sufficiently  instructed  in  cynicism  to 
unmask  the  most  plausible  politician ;  but  women 
of  simplicity,  having  faith  in  all  humanity,  would 
become  unconscious  dupes  of  the  wily  intriguer, 
or  willing  victims  of  the  honest  reformer  who  is 
himself  deceived.  Even  if  women  were  in  posses- 
sion of  a  correct  theory  of  government,  which  in 
itself  is  merely  a  matter  of  surmise,  and  were 
resolved  to  lay  aside  all  considerations  of  per- 
sonal interest  for  the  sake  of  giving  true  expres- 
sion to  it,  they  would  yet  be  face  to  face  with 
those  contrivances  which  exist  for  the  purpose  of 
dulling  the  conscience  and  paralyzing  the  public 
will.  Men  who  are  enthusiastic  reformers  of  poli- 
tics continually  encounter  the  influence  of  the 
under- world  intriguer,  the  briber,  the  organizer 
of  self-interest;  and  it  is  entirely  probable  that 


72  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

in  the  new  order  women  might  be  found  who 
would  lend  themselves  for  these  base  purposes, 
if  we  can  infer  from  the  ease  with  which  recruits 
are  obtained  for  purposes  which  are  baser  still. 

Suffragettes  are  mistaken  if  they  suppose  that 
their  labour  is  ended  when  they  pause  in  the 
weary  round  of  visits  to  dressmaker,  manicure, 
and  masseuse,  or  interrupt  their  social  and  do- 
mestic duties,  for  so  much  time  as  is  required  to 
place  a  dainty  ballot  in  a  box.  When  they  adven- 
ture into  the  booth  they  plunge  into  the  world  of 
politics  and  of  crime,  unaware  that  their  innocent 
act  may  be  the  means  of  depriving  a  rich  corpo- 
ration of  its  booty,  a  poor  man  of  his  food,  a 
worker  of  the  right  to  live,  a  woman  of  her  pro- 
fession, or  a  criminal  of  his  prey.  They  must  not 
erpect  that,  upon  beholding  the  spectacle  of  a 
suffragette  about  to  vote,  all  these  forces  of  self- 
interest  and  of  evil  will  run  backward  and  fall  to 
the  ground  as  dead  men. 

It  is  not  the  act  of  voting  which  emancipates 
a  people.  They  qualify  themselves  for  voting 
by  remaining  free.  The  negroes  to  whom  I  have 
referred  will  be  worthy  to  vote  only  when  they 
emancipate  themselves  from  themselves.  Their 
political  equality  was  thrust  upon  them,  and  it 
has  not  done  them  much  good.  They  were  unable 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  73 

to  acquire  freedom :  they  are  unfit  to  exercise  the 
functions  of  free  men.  The  immediate  business  to 
which  all  suffragettes  should  address  themselves 
is  to  assist  in  this  investigation  of  their  own 
minds,  to  ascertain  if  they  really  do  desire  free- 
dom and  are  competent  to  achieve  it,  if  indeed 
they  desire  it  so  earnestly  that  they  must  needs 
seize  upon  it  without  saying  "by  your  leave," 
and  at  one  stroke  emancipate  themselves  from 
their  own  nature  and  from  the  restrictions  which 
from  the  beginning  of  time  have  been  imposed 
upon  them  by  reason  of  the  possession  of  that 
nature. 

All  literature  concerns  itself  with  this  investi- 
gation of  the  nature  of  humanity,  or  rather  the 
soul  of  it,  if  one  may  risk  the  employment  of  so 
ambiguous  a  word  ;  and,  according  to  Browning, 
little  else  is  worth  study  save  the  development  of 
a  soul.  The  consensus  that  an  examination  of  the 
soul  of  the  female  is  an  impolite,  ungracious,  or 
impertinent  act  is  a  suggestion  that  she  has  none, 
or  at  best,  that  she  has  one  which  does  not  merit 
or  will  not  endure  such  scrutiny.  The  process  can 
be  carried  on  with  entire  impersonality,  as  men 
investigate  their  own  nature,  and  even  if  it  lead 
to  self-depreciation,  that  also  is  good.  The  "  capa- 
bility and  god-like  reason  "  of  the  male  is  not  the 


74  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

theme  of  "  Hamlet,"  but  rather  an  amplification 
of  the  question  and  answer :  "  What  is  a  man  ? 
If  his  chief  good  and  market  of  his  time  be  but 
to  sleep  and  feed,  —  a  beast,  no  more,  a  beast,  the 
lord  of  beasts."  And  if  in  the  nature  of  women 
are  found  traces  of  the  primitive  woman,  that 
need  not  alarm  them  or  us,  though  it  may  dispel 
certain  illusions  to  make  way  for  fresh  illusions 
founded  upon  reality. 

Men  are  quite  free  to  confess  that  they  have 
not  eradicated  the  savage  instincts  from  their 
hearts,  that  traces  of  the  primitive  man  are  ever 
present  with  them,  and  they  do  not  hesitate  to 
make  open  revelation  of  it  in  their  stupid  bru- 
tality, in  the  joy  with  which  they  eat  their  food, 
in  their  poor  attempts  at  the  decoration  of  their 
persons  by  means  of  green  hats  and  coloured 
waistcoats,  in  their  pitiable  efforts  to  look  fierce 
by  an  arrangement  of  the  vestige  of  hair  which 
yet  survives,  in  the  alacrity  with  which  they  im- 
bibe intoxicants  for  the  sake  of  casting  off  that 
burden  of  morality  which  they  have  so  painfully 
acquired  and  which  yet  sits  uneasily  upon  them. 
But  a  woman,  living  in  the  minds  of  others,  care- 
ful not  of  what  she  is  but  of  the  impression  which 
she  makes,  is  as  anxious  to  conceal  her  identity 
as  she  is  to  disguise  the  art  of  her  adornment. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  75 

To  get  at  the  root  of  the  matter,  we  must  under- 
stand the  essential  character  of  the  feminine  na- 
ture, and  if  we  discover  that  it  is  good,  neutral, 
or  bad,  we  must  remember  that  man  has  made  it 
so.  The  praise  or  blame  is  to  us.  Therefore  we 
are  in  reality  investigating  ourselves.  There  is  a 
German  saying:  From  a  woman  you  can  learn 
nothing  of  a  woman.  As  Immanuel  Kant  ex- 
plains it :  woman  does  not  betray  her  secret.  And 
yet,  the  only  secret  which  is  well  kept  is  that 
which  is  no  secret  at  all.  Possibly  this  is  the  rea- 
son why  women  and  Freemasons  have  been  so 
successful  in  guarding  theirs.  The  revelation 
which  women  in  their  writings  make  of  them- 
selves is  incomplete  because  they  are  incapable 
of  that  intellectual  efPort  by  which  complete 
detachment  is  obtained.  All  the  "  Confessions " 
have  been  done  by  men,  St.  Augustine,  Mon- 
taigne, Pepys,  Rousseau,  Amiel,  and  by  those 
immodest  writers  of  the  past  ten  years  whose 
confessions  are  so  tiresome  because  they  have  so 
little  to  confess,  and  therefore  experience  none  of 
that  reminiscitory  pleasure  which  makes  the  con- 
fessional so  popular. 

It  was  a  reflection  of  Joseph  de  Maistre:  "I 
do  not  know  what  the  heart  of  a  rascal  may  be ; 
I  know  what  is  in  the  heart  of  an  honest  man: 


76  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

it  is  horrible."  Only  a  man  is  capable  of  making 
this  true  reflection  and  of  confessing  not  alone 
faults  which  do  not  dishonour,  but  secrets  which 
are  ridiculous  and  mortal  sins  which  are  without 
extenuation.  One  may  well  believe  that  Chateau- 
briand in  his  "  Memoires  d'Outre-tombe,"  La- 
martine  in  his  "  Confidences,"  Renan  in  his  "  Sou- 
venirs," even  without  being  consciously  insincere 
or  lacking  iu  veracity,  refrained  from  mentioning 
those  cruelly  painful  reminiscences  with  which 
Rousseau  scourged  himself ;  but  one  is  considered 
simple-minded  indeed  who  believes  that  George 
Sand  tells  us  as  much  as  she  can  remember  in 
"  L'Histoire  de  ma  Vie."  This  charge  which  Mr. 
Jules  Lemaitre  brings  against  George  Sand  finds 
its  explanation  in  the  fact  that  women  really  do 
forget.  A  man  will  deliberately  revive  the  re- 
membrance of  past  sins  for  his  present  amend- 
ment, and  evil  being  turned  into  good,  the  sin  is 
forgiven.  A  woman  forgets  an  act  of  meanness 
because  it  made  no  impression  upon  her  mind 
when  she  committed  it.  She  does  not  understand 
the  nature  of  it.  She  forgives  an  act  of  meanness 
which  a  woman  commits  against  her  because  they 
understand  each  other  so  well. 

To  arrive  at  an  apprehension  of   this  condi- 
tion of  non-morality,  we  must  go  back  to  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     77 

beginning  of  created  beings,  wben  the  problems  of 
physiology  were  reduced  to  their  simplest  forms, 
and  the  problems  of  psychology  and  ethics  had 
not  yet  made  their  appearance ;  when  the  presence 
of  life  was  revealed  only  by  the  appearance  of 
movement.  As  we  see  the  living  being  in  its  low- 
est form,  it  merely  moves,  eats,  grows,  reproduces 
itself,  and  dies.  It  is  contractile,  irritable,  recep- 
tive, assimilative,  metabolic,  secretory,  respira- 
tory, and  reproductive,  as  the  books  on  science 
say.  This  seems  a  great  deal,  but  in  reality  it  is 
very  little,  for  it  does  not  differentiate  an  amoeba 
from  a  man. 

The  evolution  of  the  animal  kingdom  began 
with  the  acquirement  of  the  first  rudiments  of 
a  morality.  The  original  amoeba  was  content  to 
await  until  its  food  arrived  in  a  faint  swirl  of 
water.  We  can  well  imagine  that,  by  some  cir- 
cumstance which  was  apparently  fortuitous  but  in 
reality  due  to  the  operation  of  the  law  of  gravity 
and  of  those  principles  which  underlie  the  distri- 
bution of  air,  the  food  was  brought  in  unusual 
quantity  or  at  an  unnecessary  moment.  The  crea- 
ture, being  already  surfeited,  was  quite  willing 
that  the  nutriment  should  go  to  a  rival.  The  sat- 
isfaction which  was  experienced  as  a  result  of 
comfortable  physical  distention  was  attributed  to 


78  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

an  act  of  self-abnegation,  and  so  the  foundation 
of  morality  was  laid. 

This  illustration  may  be  made  more  obvious, 
and  perhaps  less  absurd,  if  we  consider  the  situa- 
tion of  the  savage  reclining  before  the  fire  with 
his  family  in  the  sanctity  of  his  cave  after  a  suc- 
cessful day's  chase,  and  a  surfeit  upon  the  rude 
but  efficient  cookery  of  those  days.  We  shall  not 
be  wrong  if  we  surmise  that  an  emotion  of  grati- 
tude might  arise  in  his  breast  towards  the  giver 
of  so  much  good  and  of  commiseration  of  a  less 
fortunate  neighbour.  This  laudable  sentiment 
might  induce  him  to  share  the  food  which  was  yet 
uneaten,  especially  if  —  not  to  credit  him  with 
too  high  and  disinterested  a  morality — he  recalled 
that  on  previous  occasions  his  surplus  store  had 
perished  by  decay.  Certainly  he  would  not  feel 
disposed  to  interfere  with  his  neighbour's  chase, 
and  so  the  principles  of  justice  would  be  estab- 
lished. It  is  not  improbable  that  his  neighbour  at 
some  future  time  would  do  as  he  had  been  done 
by,  and  accordingly  the  growth  of  morality  and 
the  bonds  of  amity  would  be  strengthened.  In  due 
course  game  laws  would  make  their  appearance, 
and  out  of  that  would  arise  a  system  of  jurispru- 
dence to  cover  the  various  problems  which  must 
have  faced  a  growing,  though  simple,  civilization. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  79 

If  now  it  be  true  that  morality  had  its  origin 
in  the  mental  and  physical  activities  attendant 
upon  the  procuring  of  food,  and  since  these  activi- 
ties were  exercised  chiefly  by  the  male,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  female  who  was  not  brought  under 
the  influence  of  a  favourable  environment  would 
remain  non-moral.  She  did  not  come  in  contact 
with  the  world,  as  the  saying  is,  and  continued 
unlearned,  wanting  the  hard  lesson  of  experience. 
Something  of  a  similar  nature  is  still  witnessed 
in  the  case  of  those  clerics  who  deal  habitually 
with  women,  of  schoolmasters  and  professors 
whose  world  is  merely  that  which  is  encountered 
within  the  walls  of  a  class-room,  and  of  writers 
whose  observation  does  not  extend  beyond  their 
closets.  The  characteristics  of  the  feminine  nature 
are  found  in  them.  They  are  considered  virtuous 
because  the  problems  of  morality  have  never  pre- 
sented themselves. 

Shut  out  from  the  world,  the  primitive  woman 
was  not  free  to  develop  an  independent  life.  She 
adapted  herself  to  the  man.  His  views  were  her 
views  ;  his  dislikes  were  shared  by  her,  and  she 
adopted  his  opinions  ready-made.  She  preferred 
to  be  dependent,  and  agreed  that  the  man  should 
continue  to  mould  her  mentality.  This  destruction 
of  her  personality  and  departure  from  her  line  of 


80  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

life  became  so  permanent  that  she  enjoyed  it.  Her 
sense  of  personal  value  was  lost.  It  was  found  in 
external  things,  her  beauty,  her  adornment,  her 
children,  or  her  husband.  This  lightness  of  regard 
for  their  own  personality  still  persists,  as  we  may 
see  in  the  readiness  with  which  a  woman  ex- 
changes her  own  name  for  another,  not  once,  but 
under  certain  circumstances  —  after  a  period  of 
half-luxurious  sorrow  and  self-conscious  demure- 
ness  —  twice,  or  yet  again,  and  each  time  with 
the  greater  alacrity.  Without  freedom  there  can 
be  no  free  will,  and  without  free  will  there  can  be 
no  character. 

The  primitive  man  in  the  contest  with  his  en- 
vironment developed  an  ethic,  a  logic,  and  a  mor- 
ality, because  he  was  free.  Deprived  of  freedom, 
the  primitive  woman  remained  servile  in  disposi- 
tion ;  tyrannical  when  occasion  offered,  because 
the  servant  ever  makes  the  worst  master  ;  unjust, 
since  she  was  protected  against  the  penalty  of 
injustice  ;  unsympathetic  and  heartless,  because 
there  was  no  occasion  for  a  wide  and  disinter- 
ested charity  ;  mindless,  because  there  was  another 
to  think  for  her.  Trained  to  accept  the  convention 
which  the  man  imposed  upon  her,  she  easily  sub- 
mitted to  the  conventions  devised  by  her  own  sex, 
and  became  imitative  even  in  the  clothes  which 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  81 

she  wore,  in  the  method  of  adornment  which  she 
adopted,  in  the  sentiments  which  she  entertained, 
and  in  the  opinions  which  she  expressed.  In  time, 
however,  she  adapted  herself  to  her  environment, 
and  developed  a  kind  of  ethic  of  her  own,  which 
was  entirely  adequate  for  the  circumstances  in 
which  she  was  placed,  but  breaks  down  hopelessly 
in  a  wider  sphere  of  activity. 

As  if  it  were  not  enough  that  the  woman  was 
deprived  of  these  incentives  to  the  acquisition  of 
a  morality,  she  was  made  the  victim  of  man's  un- 
conscious egoism  and  his  conscious  duplicity.  Men 
in  common  with  other  males  are  subject  at  times 
to  a  curious  psychical  and  physical  condition  which 
is  familiarly  known  as  "being  in  love.  "  The  first 
symptom  of  this  mental  disorder  is  an  entire 
incapacity  to  perceive  the  truth.  He  creates  an 
ideal  woman,  the  woman  of  poetry  and  other  ro- 
mantical  writings.  He  attributes  to  her,  or  rather 
projects  into  the  ideal,  his  own  qualities  of  truth- 
fulness, modesty,  justice,  charity,  sympathy,  for- 
titude, and  beauty.  To  employ  the  jargon  of  the 
theologians,  this  ideal  woman  is  anthropomorphic. 
A  man  who  is  in  love  with  a  woman  is  really  in 
love  with  himself,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  is  aware  of  the  fact.  He  begins  by  deceiving 
himself  and  ends  by  deceiving  her,  for  a  time  at 


82  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

least,  and  her  future  life  consists  in  the  employ- 
ment of  every  resource  to  encourage  and  main- 
tain the  fiction.  It  is  not  the  real  woman  whom 
he  loves,  but  a  spurious  personality.  To  succeed 
in  retaining  this  love,  she  is  obliged  to  live  the 
life  of  the  image  which  he  has  created,  and  ends 
by  destroying  her  inner  self.  And  yet,  under 
present  conditions,  that  woman  succeeds  best  who 
is  most  successful  in  maintaining  this  illusion  in 
the  minds  of  both. 

This  practice  of  loving  and  believing  a  lie  is,  I 
suspect,  the  fb7is  et  origo  of  all  that  is  evil  in  our 
civilization.  Few  men  and  no  women  are  free 
from  the  vice.  Even  the  intelligent  fall  into  the 
easy  habit.  In  an  important  city  the  editing  of  a 
newspaper  was  entrusted  to  ten  of  the  most  right- 
eous women  to  be  found  therein,  and  yet  they 
assigned  the  prize  which  had  been  offered  for  the 
best  expression  of  appreciation  of  their  labours 
to  a  man  who  affirmed  that  their  literary  pro- 
duct would  overwhelm  the  city  "with  a  deluge  of 
sweetness  and  light.  "  The  second  prize  went  to 
a  woman  who  predicted  that  much  good  would  be 
effected  "  by  their  wisdom,  their  wit,  and  their 
might." 

And  this  leads  one  to  the  observation  that 
nearly  all  writing  is  an  endeavour  to  minister  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  83 

this  desire  for  self-deception.  Comparatively  few 
men  who  have  attained  to  the  great  age  of  forty 
years  indulge  in  the  pastime  of  reading.  Their 
experience  has  taught  them  that  the  motive  of 
nearly  all  writing  is  the  desire  for  notoriety, 
either  in  this  life  or  in  the  minds  of  those  who  are 
to  come.  They  are  wise  enough  to  write  their  own 
books ;  but  being  wise,  they  abstain.  They  regard 
it  as  a  delusion  that  all  who  are  capable  of  read- 
ing are  also  capable  of  writing.  As  well  might  a 
man  believe  that  he  had  a  peculiar  aptitude  for 
herding  sheep  and  playing  the  bagpipes,  because 
he  was  born  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  This 
desire  of  women  to  be  deceived  accounts  for  that 
insincere  writing  which  is  found  in  nearly  all 
novels,  and  in  all  of  those  she-papers  which  fatten 
upon  their  credulity.  Reading,  then,  becomes  a 
vapid  and  frivolous  amusement  for  dazing  the 
mind,  and  a  book  no  better  than  a  lap-dog. 

Nor  does  art  thrive  any  better  than  literature 
in  this  atmosphere  of  feminism.  Art  has  to  do 
with  the  beauty  of  utility,  of  truth.  A  woman 
learns  by  instinct,  possibly  by  experience,  that 
personal  beauty  does  not  imply  morality,  and  as 
it  is  with  her  own  personality  she  is  most  con- 
cerned, a  secret  distrust  in  all  beauty,  even  the 
beauty  of  art,  is  instilled  into  her  mind.  Accord- 


84  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

ingly  the  pictures  which  are  painted  to  please 
her  must  have  a  superficial  prettiness,  and  the 
houses  which  are  erected  for  her  use  will  best 
serve  her  purpose  if,  instead  of  simplicity,  they 
display  a  decorated  cosiness  and  have  sufficient 
cupboards  for  the  accommodation  of  her  cast-off 
finery. 

The  superfluous  top-hamper  of  civilization, 
which  makes  living  difficult  for  the  rich  and  im- 
possible for  the  poor,  continues  to  burden  human- 
ity because  women  will  have  it  so.  A  world  of 
iniquity  is  created  out  of  their  desire  for  change. 
It  is  not  love  of  beauty  which  suddenly  reveals 
to  a  woman  that  last  year's  adornment  is  hideous, 
but  the  desire  to  change  one  form  of  ugliness  for 
another.  If  she  possessed  that  sense  of  beauty 
which  comes  from  sincerity,  and  that  in  turn  from 
freedom,  she  would  once  and  for  all  agree  upon 
some  practice  of  adornment  combined  with  util- 
ity, which  would  have  a  reasonable  degree  of  per- 
manency, rather  than  submit  to  the  tyranny  of 
an  organized  band  of  mercenaries,  who  exist  for 
the  purpose  of  exploiting  her  femininity.  This 
passion  in  women  for  splendid  apparel  arises  from 
their  suspicion  that  they  are  not  in  reality  beau- 
tiful, but  have  only  been  told  so  by  men  whose 
senses  they  suspect  are  dulled  by  passion. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  85 

The  value  of  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage  by 
a  woman  is  that  it  will  serve  to  emaucipate  her 
from  herself  in  so  far  as  it  emancipates  her 
from  men.  In  the  present  state  of  affairs,  which 
is  based  on  the  Oriental  conception  that  a  woman 
is  a  chattel,  a  private  possession,  born  to  serve 
and  be  dependent  upon  man,  she  has  no  complete 
existence  in  herself.  She  obtains  the  sense  of  full 
existence  only  through  her  husband  and  children, 
just  as  the  Mussulman  woman  attains  to  the 
chief  desire  of  her  heart  if  she  is  chosen  to  give 
a  son  to  the  Pattissah.  She  stands  ready  to  be 
made  wife  or  mother,  that  she  may  acquire  that 
gift;  and  her  love  is  the  mental  sense  of  satis- 
faction that  she  is  about  to  be  redeemed. 

Looked  at  narrowly,  this  attempt  on  the  part 
of  women  to  emancipate  themselves  would  appear 
to  be  nothing  more  than  the  expression  of  a  de- 
sire to  enlarge  the  range  of  their  caprice,  for 
which  not  even  marriage,  the  old  and  sovereign 
remedy,  is  any  longer  efficacious.  In  reality  the 
reason  lies  much  deeper.  It  is  a  blind  striving 
for  the  pure  air  of  freedom,  for  escape  from  a 
bondage  in  which  only  the  qualities  of  the  ser- 
vile have  had  room  for  development.  Until  wo- 
men cease  to  believe  the  pretty  lies  which  men 
tell  them,  that  they  are  only  a  little  lower  than 


86  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

the  angels,  and  discover  the  real  bondage,  their 
own  nature,  from  which  they  must  emancipate 
themselves,  they  will  not  proceed  with  any  de- 
gree of  seriousness.  They  will  not  convince  the 
world  until  they  themselves  are  convinced.  Analy- 
sis they  consider  detraction,  and  fly  from  inves- 
tigation in  wild  alarm.  Upon  this  subject  there 
is  a  considerable  body  of  information  in  the 
writings  of  satirists,  dramatists,  and  theologians, 
ancient  and  modern ;  but  it  is  decried  as  slander, 
whether  uttered  by  St.  Paul,  Origen,  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  or  Otto  Weininger. 

This  violent  effort  to  attain  to  freedom  is 
bound  to  be  associated  with  a  form  of  disorderli- 
ness  which  the  common  mind  describes  as  hys- 
terical. All  disorder  in  itself  is  bad.  It  is  intoler- 
able only  when  it  is  meaningless.  It  is  decried 
because  it  is  misunderstood.  Any  consideration 
of  the  mind  of  the  suffragette  would  be  quite  in- 
adequate without  some  mention  of  those  complex 
manifestations  which  are  known  as  hysteria.  Of 
this  too  I  shall  offer  an  explanation  in  support 
of  my  argument.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  striving 
after  a  higher  morality,  of  an  attempt  to  "  convert 
nothing  into  something,"  to  put  on  a  new  nature, 
to  acquire  personality,  distinction,  character,  and 
mind.  Up  to  a  certain  point  the  woman  accepts 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE   SUFFRAGETTE     87 

her  femininity  and  all  that  is  implied  thereby  with 
unquestioning  obedience,  taking  it  at  its  mascu- 
line value.  In  the  absence  of  an  external  con- 
trolling influence  there  comes  a  divine  discon- 
tent with  that  negative  condition  of  existence, 
and  she  becomes  imbued  with  moral  ideas  which 
are  foreign  to  her  normal  mind  and  opposed  to 
her  real  nature.  In  reality  she  puts  on  a  super- 
ficial, sham  self,  and  yet  is  incapable  of  perceiving 
the  spuriousness  of  it.  This  new  personality  shows 
itself  in  self-confidence,  independence,  assertive- 
ness,  a  punctilious  sincerity,  and  painful  candour 
in  speech  and  action.  This  artificial  imitation 
of  the  masculine  morality  with  which  she  has  over- 
laid her  femininity,  at  the  touch  of  some  rough 
reality  flies  in  pieces,  and  the  conflict  between 
her  real  nature  and  this  unnatural  self  produces 
those  phenomena  which  are  known  as  hysteria. 
It  is  a  contest  between  what  she  knows  to  be  true 
and  what  she  suspects  is  false. 

A  woman  in  this  condition  is  a  piteous  and  de- 
grading spectacle,  exposing  her  femininity  naked 
yet  unashamed,  and  revealing  the  whole  record 
of  development  in  its  continuous  progress  through 
those  stages  which  we  designate  as  plant,  beast, 
and  savage  life.  To  the  psychologist  the  phenom- 
enon is  full  of  interest  and  fruitful  of  instruction, 


88  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

but  it  recalls  the  fearful  image  conjured  up  by 
the  words : 

**  And  Satan  yawning  on  his  brazen  seat, 

Toys  with  the  screaming  thing  his  fiends  have  flayed." 

This  demand  for  the  suffrage  is  in  reality  an 
attempt  to  arrive  at  a  higher  morality,  to  attain 
to  consideration  in  virtue  of  goodness  and  not  of 
charm.  The  real  opponents  are  the  women  who 
master  men  by  that  easy  device,  and  all  men  who 
find  it  so  comfortable  to  succumb,  because  they 
find  it  so  alluring.  There  is  an  active  and  a  pas- 
sive conspiracy  working  to  the  same  end  that 
women  shall  not  be  free.  There  is  no  creature  in 
the  world  who  is  so  irritating  to  the  woman  who 
is  merely  good  as  the  woman  who  is  merely  charm- 
ing, and  therefore  in  a  condition  of  negative  mor- 
ality. The  most  efficient  means  to  destroy  the  force 
of  any  charm  is  to  investigate  its  origin,  a  task  to 
which  those  who  are  striving  for  emancipation 
would  do  well  to  apply  themselves.  It  is  not 
enough  that  they  have  relinquished  this  quality 
in  themselves.  They  can  succeed  only  when  they 
have  removed  its  possession  from  others. 

The  struggle  for  freedom  from  their  own  na- 
ture will  not  be  easy.  The  habits  acquired  during 
countless  ages  are  all  but  ineradicable ;  yet  pro- 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  89 

gress  may  appear  in  the  exchange  of  one  bondage 
for  another.  One  would  say  that  the  noble  army 
of  martyrs  who  have  attacked  the  inner  sanctu- 
ary of  the  British  Constitution  had  emancipated 
themselves  from  every  restraint  and  destroyed 
the  last  attraction  between  themselves  and  living 
men ;  and  yet  their  next  act  was  to  bind  them- 
selves with  physical  chains  to  those  stone  images 
of  male  humanity  which  stand  in  the  Hall  of  St. 
Stephen.  This  thing  is  an  allegory. 

I  am  not  blind  to  certain  perils  which  lie  in 
the  way ;  but  I  think  they  have  been  exaggerated 
and  will  tend  to  cure  themselves.  Voting  implies 
being  voted  for,  and  men  are  so  fatuous  that  they 
will  vote  for  the  woman  who  has  a  pleasing  per- 
sonality and  skill  in  the  adornment  of  her  person, 
rather  than  for  a  candidate  of  commanding  intel- 
lect and  skill  in  the  public  use  of  her  tongue. 
Then  will  arise  another  noble  band  of  martyrs 
after  the  discovery  of  how  little  men's  votes  for 
women  are  influenced  by  reason  and  how  much  by 
charm.  They  will  declare  that  men  shall  no  longer 
have  the  opportunity  of  being  silly,  and  they  will 
banish  their  charming  sisters  from  public  life. 

There  is  nothing  which  a  man  who  is  left  to 
himself  desires  so  ardently  as  he  desires  the  femi- 
nine. To  attain  to  it  he  will  commit  the  last  in- 


90  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

famy,  descending  to  the  level  of  the  beast  from 
which  he  has  arisen,  even  whilst  he  despises  him- 
seK  for  the  surrender  of  that  morality  which  he 
has  so  laboriously  acquired.  This  interdependence 
of  good  and  evil  constitutes  the  riddle  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  and  yet  it  is  out  of  this  conflict  between 
the  lower  and  the  higher  that  our  civilization, 
as  we  know  it,  has  arisen.  The  woman  exercises 
her  power  by  means  of  a  charm,  by  which  she 
allures  and  then  captivates.  The  "  fountain  "  of 
this  charm  is  love,  and  its  essence  "  pleasant  to 
the  eyes  "  like  that  fruit  which  first  attracted  the 
Universal  Dame  herself. 

If  the  power  of  this  charm  were  unchecked,  it 
would  re-absorb  the  masculine  idea  into  the  femi- 
nine, so  earnestly  is  it  desired  by  men.  It  is  the 
business  of  women  to  see  to  it  that  this  charm  is 
exercised  with  due  restraint.  Every  child  knows 
that  a  charm  is  broken  by  speech,  and  if  the  in- 
junction taceat  mulier  were  observed,  the  mascu- 
line would  be  delivered  into  an  eternal  bondage. 
If  all  women  at  all  times  behaved  themselves  in 
accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  eternal  femi- 
nine, which  are  those  of  appearance  and  beauty, 
men  would  become  so  enamoured  of  it  that  they 
would  mould  their  lives  by  it  and  eventually  trans- 
form themselves  into  women. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  91 

Compare  the  power  of  the  woman  who  sits,  and 
looks,  and  exercises  her  charm  in  silence  and  mys- 
tery with  her  who  says  an  inane  thing  three  times 
over  with  the  intention  of  being  interesting  and 
vivacious,  or  a  foolish  thing  rather  than  remain 
silent;  with  her  who  votes  and  speaks  in  the  coun- 
cils, even  though  she  speak  with  the  tongue  of  a 
man  and  reveal  all  knowledge;  with  her  who 
brawls  in  public  places,  and  even  gives  her  body 
to  the  HoUoway  gaol,  and  we  shall  discover  the 
essential  reason  why  women  should  be  encouraged 
to  do  these  things,  namely,  that  they  shall  be 
induced  to  tell  the  truth  about  themselves  and  so 
liberate  men  in  some  degree  from  the  power  of 
their  charm,  that  reason  may  govern  life. 

The  women  who  are  not  satisfied  with  the  status 
of  wife  and  mother  and  are  striving  to  educate 
themselves  into  fitting  "companions"  for  their 
husbands  and  sons  by  attending  lectures  and  read- 
ing magazines  are  unaware  of  the  power  of  this 
charm,  and  are  suffering  from  an  exaggerated 
notion  of  the  kind  of  companionship  for  which 
men  are  capable.  They  magnify  the  masculine  in- 
telligence unduly.  What  a  piece  of  work  is  a  man ! 
they  exclaim  in  rhapsody,  how  noble  in  reason, 
how  infinite  in  faculty,  in  form  and  moving  how 
express  and  admirable,  in  action  how  like  an 


92  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

angel,  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god,  the  beauty 
of  the  world!  In  reality  this  "paragon  of  ani- 
mals "  desires  a  woman  more  ardently  than  he 
desires  a  talking  book,  agreeing,  if  he  is  sensi- 
ble, with  that  eminent  divine,  John  Calvin,  when 
he  declared,  "  The  only  beauty  that  can  please  my 
heart  is  one  that  is  gentle,  chaste,  modest,  eco- 
nomical, patient,  and  finally,  careful  of  her  hus- 
band's health." 

The  real  grievance  from  which  women  suffer  is 
that  their  authority  and  claim  to  consideration  is 
based  upon  a  principle  which  is  non-ethical  and 
of  no  inherent  value  in  their  eyes.  Their  way  of 
escape  lies  in  convincing  men  that  they  also  should 
arrive  at  a  like  estimate  of  its  fallibility.  This  can 
best  be  done  by  setting  up  truth  in  opposition  to 
falsehood,  which  is  the  most  subtle  method  of 
iconoclasm,  the  most  powerful  for  breaking  down 
an  eidolon  in  which  the  affections  are  inordinately 
fixed,  since  the  deity  and  the  devotee  can  then 
make  mutual  inferences.  To  keep  the  matter 
scientific  and  impersonal,  they  might  begin  by  an 
investigation  into  the  nature  of  the  troglodytic 
woman,  disclosing  her  characteristics,  assigning 
them  to  their  proper  cause,  and  estimating  what 
proportion  still  remains.  The  opinion  requires  cor- 
roboration that  women  have  been  more  successful 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  93 

than  men  in  purging  away  those  qualities  which 
were  inherent  in  the  primitive  nature.  Indeed  to 
the  most  careful  observer  there  is  some  evidence 
that  jealousy  has  not  entirely  given  way  to  justice, 
heartlessness  to  charity,  pride  to  dignity,  shame- 
lessness  to  modesty,  selfishness  to  sympathy,  and 
the  desire  of  provoking  compassion  to  a  self- 
reliant  fortitude. 

This  investigation  might  properly  be  under- 
taken by  the  various  Councils  of  Women,  even  at 
the  risk  of  excluding  those  subjects  upon  which 
they  possess  no  especial  information,  such  as  the 
effect  of  narcotics  and  intoxicants  upon  the  mas- 
culine frame.  A  frank  pronouncement  from  this 
high  quarter  would  be  free  from  the  taunt  that  it 
was  merely  slander,  diatribe,  or  vituperation.  To 
make  the  enquiry  sufficiently  extensive,  it  might 
be  well  to  appoint  a  committee  of  men  to  prepare 
an  agendum  for  the  meeting,  a  labour  in  which  I 
would  willingly  bear  a  part,  having  a  desire  for 
specific  information  upon  certain  points,  namely : 
why  up  to  a  certain  age  a  younger  sister  dislikes 
the  elder,  and  between  certain  ages  a  mother  is 
averse  to  her  daughter ;  why  the  law  of  modesty 
in  apparel  is  not  constant  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening  and  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  why  it  is 
painful  for  a  woman  to  witness  another  advancing 


94  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

in  social  status ;  why  female  beauty  and  an  adorn- 
ment which  heightens  it  does  not  excite  an  emo- 
tion of  universal  pleasure ;  why  women  make  good 
nurses,  if  it  is  not  because  they  are  lacking  in 
sympathy. 

For  women,  then,  there  are  two  lines  of  con- 
duct open,  and  only  two.  Either  they  must  re- 
main within  the  cave,  as  "  sisters  to  the  flowers," 
in  an  environment  suitable  for  the  development 
of  such  qualities  as  may  be  developed  from  the  es- 
sentially feminine  nature,  an  easy  docility,  a  pleas- 
urable obedience,  meekness,  forbearance,  long-suf- 
fering, patience,  silence;  as  objects  upon  which 
men  may  lavish  protection,  kindness,  benevolence, 
affection,  and  so  stimulate  their  own  masculine 
morality,  and  redeem  themselves  in  virtue  of  the 
love  which  is  created  thereby  :  or  they  must  as- 
pire to  a  perfect  freedom;  casting  aside  the  curb 
of  sex  and  freeing  themselves  from  the  tyranny  of 
kith  and  kin,  they  must  come  out  into  the  world 
and  remain  out  in  the  full  glare  of  the  sun,  ruth- 
lessly exposing  their  nature  to  the  rough  environ- 
ment whereby  its  imperfections  will  be  scourged 
and  chastened  away.  Possibly  that  nature  might 
perish  in  the  process  before  a  new  one  was  created, 
and  in  any  event  it  might  be  nothing  more  than  a 
close  approximation  to  the  male. 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE  95 

There  is  no  middle  station,  half  in  and  half  out, 
exposing  the  evil  and  doing  nothing  for  its  amend- 
ment. This  tentative  standing-ground  merely  per- 
mits of  a  sudden  release  of  the  nature  of  the  primi- 
tive woman  in  all  its  nakedness  unchecked  from 
within  and  uncontrolled  from  without.  The  spec- 
tacle is  so  revolting,  I  fear,  that  most  women  would 
turn  back  with  grief  and  hatred  of  it  to  their  old 
rule,  rather  than  strive  with  a  full  purpose  and 
endeavour  after  a  new  obedience.  That  is  the  es- 
sential difficulty  with  which  those  women  have  to 
contend,  who  would  lead  their  sisters  out  of  bond- 
age. Their  real  enemies  are  of  their  own  house- 
hold, who  hate  to  see  this  revelation  that  women 
make  of  themselves,  which  affords  to  vulgar  satir- 
ists congenial  exercise  of  their  irony  and  scoff,  for 
the  torment  or  amusement  of  those  who,  like  them- 
selves, by  continually  regarding  humanity  as  it  is, 
have  developed  a  capacity  for  analysis  at  the  ex- 
pense of  a  certain  dryness  and  hardness  of  heart. 

These  satirists  smile  and  whisper  in  our  ear 
that  the  emancipation  of  women  is  intended  only 
to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  their  caprice ;  that  their 
performance  is  of  no  immediate  interest  to  the 
man,  and  only  of  very  remote  benefit  to  the 
woman ;  that,  when  he  grows  tired  of  the  farce, 
he  will  cast  her  out  of  the  cave  and  leave  her  to 


96  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

her  own  device  as  he  was  left  in  the  day  of  his 
creation.  From  this  they  conclude  that  a  race 
which  allows  itself  to  be  brought  to  such  an  im- 
passe is  not  worth  reproducing,  and  we  cannot 
blame  them  too  severely.  It  is  on  account  of  their 
perception  of  this  fact  that  the  women  of  primi- 
tive communities  deal  faithfully  with  their  unruly 
sisters  lest  a  worse  thing  befall  themselves.  There 
is  a  choice  between  the  good  and  the  best  as  there 
is  between  the  evil  and  the  good;  and  women  must 
find  in  freedom  compensation  for  having  cast  out 
the  imputed  sacredness  from  their  lives ;  and,  in 
watching  the  gyrations  of  their  souls,  some  re- 
compense for  that  calm  leisure  in  which  they  were 
wont  to  dream. 

This  then  is  the  end  of  the  argument  in  favour 
of  the  suffragette,  which  is  developed  out  of  her 
own  psychology.  Women  have  obtained  their 
places  in  the  world  because  they  are  desired  by 
men  on  grounds  which  are  not  of  the  highest  ethi- 
cal quality ;  but  these  are  the  only  grounds  upon 
which  men  will  consent  to  endure  the  burden  of 
carrying  on  a  society,  about  whose  invention  they 
were  not  consulted.  We  are  now  —  men  and 
women,  not  as  opponents  but  as  companions  in  a 
misery  which  we  should  do  our  best  to  assuage  by 
mutual  help  —  face  to  face  with  the  real  problem : 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     97 

Shall  we  allow  the  evil  to  endure,  or  even  suffer 
the  good  to  remain  as  the  enemy  of  the  best,  say- 
ing with  the  sluggard,  a  little  more  sleep,  a  little 
more  slumber;  or  shall  we  strive  after  the  higher 
morality,  even  losing  our  life  that  we  may  save  it  ? 
It  is  no  bar  to  the  argument  that  it  faces  the 
extinction  of  the  species  to  which  we  belong.  In 
a  question  of  morality  consequences  do  not  count. 
"We  did  not  create  ourselves.  The  responsibility 
of  ceasing  to  exist  does  not  rest  upon  us.  It  is  in 
reality  a  question  of  conduct,  and  upon  that  we 
can  always  get  information  if  we  enquire  of  Him 
whose  genius  for  right  living  was  such  that  a  large 
proportion  of  mankind  have  agreed  upon  Him  as 
the  chief  exemplar  and  pattern  of  pure  righteous- 
ness. The  problem  presented  itself  to  Him.  He 
answered  it  in  specific  terms.  Three  times  and  in 
separate  places  are  the  question  and  answer  re- 
corded in  words  which  are  almost  identical :  What 
good  thing  shall  I  do  that  I  may  inherit  eternal 
life;  what  lack  I  yet  ?  What  shall  I  do  that  I  may 
inherit  eternal  life  ?  What  shall  I  do  to  inherit 
eternal  life?  To  convince  us  that  the  answer  is 
not  one  of  special  application,  the  question  is  re- 
peated thrice  in  general  terms  and  so  recorded  : 
Who  then  can  be  saved?  Who  then  can  be  saved  ? 
Who  then  can  be  saved  ?  The  answer  invariably 


98  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

is  that  those  who  would  inherit  everlasting  life 
must  first  forsake  certain  things  which  are  spe- 
cifically set  forth,  and  the  enumeration  ends  in 
all  cases  with  "  woman."  One  is  quite  prepared 
to  be  told  that  Paul  was  ill-informed  or  ill-na- 
tured, when  he  declared  that  even  the  intimacy 
with  a  woman  which  is  implied  by  marriage  is  a 
drag  in  the  attempt  after  a  higher  life,  and  yet 
protest,  in  face  of  that  exegetic  feat  which  attrib- 
utes the  insertion  of  the  fatal  word  to  a  monkish 
hand,  that  Jesus  really  meant  something  when  he 
said  that  she  must  be  forsaken. 

All  things  are  working  toward  this  divine  end 
by  making  it  easy  to  forsake  the  woman.  As  that 
kind  of  intelligence  is  developed  by  higher  educa- 
tion, as  it  is  called  with  a  certain  degree  of  as- 
sumption, which  consists  in  an  increased  capacity 
for  the  recollection  of  unrelated  statements,  a 
measure  of  value  is  created  which  men  can  under- 
stand. They  are  dealing  in  their  own  currency. 
Pedantry  they  have  already  witnessed,  and  the 
instructed  woman  is  even  less  adorable  than  a 
professor.  An  imitation  of  the  garb  which  is  cus- 
tomary in  the  male  at  once  suggests  the  form 
which  it  is  intended  to  conceal  and  a  comparison 
with  the  standards  of  abstract  beauty.  "When 
women  place  themselves  in  situations  for  which 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  THE  SUFFRAGETTE     99 

they  are  not  qualified  by  their  nature  to  fill  with 
obvious  advantage  they  become  a  ridiculous  cari- 
cature of  themselves.  The  mind  of  the  suffragette 
appears  to  possess  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  that  ab- 
surdity which  makes  a  man  impatient  and  finally 
contemptuous  of  all  femininity,  and  resolute  to 
adhere  to  his  own  ideal.  A  woman  may  be  foolish 
and  yet  be  charming.  She  emancipates  herself 
when  she  becomes  an  object  of  aversion. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION 

I 

Contrary  to  the  practice  of  the  best  essayists, 
which  is  to  begin  as  far  away  from  their  subject 
as  possible  and  come  near  it  only  occasionally, 
I  shall  at  once  set  forth  in  plain  terms  what  I 
conceive  to  be  the  fallacy  in  education :  that  the 
information  which  a  child  acquires  must  have 
in  itself  some  utility  apart  from  the  educational 
value  which  lies  in  its  acquirement.  A  complete 
exposition  of  this  fallacy  would  involve  a  studious 
enquiry  into  the  essential  nature  and  purpose  of 
education,  a  laborious  research  of  the  methods 
which  are  now  in  favour,  and  possibly  some  com- 
ment upon  the  conduct  of  the  persons  who  are 
engaged  in  educational  work. 

By  way  of  prelude  to  introduce  these  various 
themes,  it  may  be  remarked  that  this  controversy 
in  which  I  propose  to  engage  myself  is  not  pre- 
cisely new,  and  I  do  not  expect  to  bring  to  it  any 
sudden  accession  of  wisdom,  but  rather  to  make 
a  conjecture  at  the  likelihood  of  the  thing,  not 
either  as  one  uttering  an  oracle  or  delivering  a 
dogma,  but  with  a  full  apprehension  of  the  falli- 
bility of  all  human  sayings. 


104  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

Let  us  begin  with  the  assumption  that  our 
theory  of  education  is  fallacious.  Consequently  a 
system  which  is  based  upon  a  false  principle  must 
itself  be  wrong.  This  is  the  proper  frame  of  mind 
for  the  conduct  of  any  research.  It  is  in  accord 
with  reason  and  experience ;  and  the  assumption 
is  not  a  violent  one.  We  have  been  wrong  in  our 
theories  about  God :  possibly  we  are  not  even  yet 
correctly  and  adequately  informed  upon  that  large 
matter.  Our  knowledge  of  the  meaning  of  the 
world  which  we  have  seen  has  turned  out,  when  it 
was  put  to  the  test,  to  be  as  irrational  as  our 
theology  ;  and  upon  this  less  abstruse  subject  — 
comparatively,  that  is — there  is  yet  a  divergence 
of  opinion. 

Up  to  a  time  within  the  memory  of  men  now 
living  the  theory  of  education  was  that  the  process 
had  something  to  do  with  education.  This  gen- 
eral statement  may  be  allowed  to  stand,  although 
it  merits  scrutiny.  It  has  been  attacked  by  those 
who,  in  ignorance  of  the  essential  nature  of  edu- 
cation and  under  the  delusion  that  going  to 
school  or  the  acquirement  of  unrelated  fragments 
of  knowledge  constitutes  its  effect,  profess  to 
find  in  it  a  brutalizing  effect  upon  the  mind. 
This  judgement  is  too  sweeping,  although  it  does 
in  a  way  enforce  the  truth  that  the  education 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  105 

which  is  of  most  value  is  that  which  a  man  gives 
to  himself.  It  takes  note  of  the  Socratic  fallacy 
that  a  man  of  knowledge  and  even  of  correct 
opinions  will  be  of  necessity  a  good  man.  It  has 
an  eye  too  upon  what  George  Gissing  calls  the  in- 
telligence of  the  heart,  that  quality  which  saves 
a  man  from  folly.  Happily  we,  as  well  as  he, 
have  seen  men  and  women,  ignorant,  prejudiced, 
capable  of  the  absurdest  misreasoning ;  and  yet 
their  faces  shone  with  the  virtues  of  kindness, 
sweetness,  generosity,  and  modesty. 

In  that  division  of  literature  which  pretends 
to  give  an  account  of  the  operation  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  in  the  human  soul,  a  clear  distinction  is 
drawn  between  the  significance  of  an  act  and  a 
work.  The  matter  is  very  abstruse,  but  it  and 
our  subject  may  both  be  illustrated  by  saying 
that  education  is  not  an  act  nor  a  series  of  acts, 
but  a  work  of  slow  accomplishment,  which  ends 
in  leaving  a  man  different,  and  better  than  he 
was  before.  An  illustration  is  not  proof,  and  we 
can  go  no  further  until  we  shall  have  determined 
what  the  end  and  aim  of  education  really  is, 
whether,  in  short,  it  is  the  achievement  of  mental 
activity  or  the  upbuilding  of  character. 

AVise  men  have  applied  their  minds  to  this 
subject  from  the  earliest  times,  and  their  maxims 


106  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

were  already  "  obsolete  and  stale  "  when  Adicaeolo- 
gos  discoursed  with  Socrates.  And  since,  as  Plato 
says,  possibly  in  his  own  defence,  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  wise  men  do  not  talk  nonsense,  it 
may  be  well  to  set  forth  their  opinion,  and  taking 
nothing  as  proven,  bring  it  to  the  test  of  reason- 
ableness. All  education,  Plato  himself  declares, 
consists  in  effecting  a  change  from  a  worse  to  a 
better  state  of  mind,  and  him  he  considers  edu- 
cated, who  converts  what  appears  and  is  evil  into 
what  is  and  appears  good.  In  similar  words  Mil- 
ton affirms  that  the  end  of  learning  is  to  repair 
the  ruins  of  our  first  parents'  fall  by  regaining  to 
know  God  aright,  and  out  of  that  knowledge  to 
love  Him,  to  imitate  Him,  to  be  like  Him.  After 
the  manner  of  Montaigne  we  might  cite  his  own 
authority  upon  the  institution  and  education  of 
a  child,  "  that  aimeth  at  true  learning  and  in 
which  would  be  disciplined  not  so  much  for  gain 
nor  for  external  show  and  ornament  but  to  adorn 
and  enrich  his  inward  mind,  desiring  rather  to 
shape  and  institute  an  able  and  sufficient  man." 

From  another  source  we  may  obtain  a  curious 
confirmation  of  these  high  views.  J.-J.  Rous- 
seau, after  he  had  abandoned  his  five  children, 
felt  qualified  to  write  a  treatise  upon  education. 
Mr.  Jules  Lemaitre,  as  the  result  of  a  judicious 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  107 

enquiry,  has  delivered  judgement  that  "  lies  are 
the  very  soul  of  three-fourths  of  all  his  books." 
To  say  that  a  man  lies  is  to  admit  that  some- 
times he  speaks  the  truth ;  therefore,  we  may 
with  the  greater  confidence  give  attention  to  what 
Rousseau  says  in  the  remaining  fourth  of  his 
writings.  The  object  of  education,  he  declares,  is 
to  prolong  the  period  of  a  boy's  ignorance :  it  is 
not  to  form  a  man  destined  for  any  given  profes- 
sion, but  a  man,  —  healthy,  strong,  frank,  loyal. 
This  view  of  the  high  aim  of  education  has 
always  been  set  forth  in  opposition  to  the  lower 
aim  at  the  useful  and  the  practical.  A  meeting  of 
school  trustees  in  any  district  to-day  will  give 
back  as  an  echo  the  words  of  the  Greek  chorus : 
"This  lower  learning  is  an  invention  worth  a 
thousand  pounds  to  those  who  practise  it."  This 
confusion  between  learning  and  education,  this 
mistake  of  the  wrappings  for  the  kernel,  is  well 
set  forth  in  the  history  of  that  poor  man,  as  re- 
lated by  Aristophanes,  who  mistook  the  fish-hook 
for  the  fish.  It  was  apparent  to  Plato  when  he 
declared  that  he  had  seen  in  the  Courts  men 
keen,  and  shrewd,  and  skilled  in  the  use  of  words, 
with  dwarfed  and  grovelling  souls,  deprived  of 
mental  enlargement,  uprightness,  and  independ- 
ence. The  phenomenon  cannot  be  unusual,  since 


108  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

Milton  witnessed  it  in  his  own  country  at  a  much 
later  period:  "Men  allured  to  the  trade  of  law, 
who  ground  their  purposes  not  on  the  prudent 
and  heavenly  contemplation  of  justice  and  equity, 
but  on  the  promising  and  pleasing  thoughts  of 
litigious  terms,  fat  contentions,  and  flowing  fees." 

I  am  quite  well  aware  that  the  standard  of  edu- 
cation cannot  be  fixed  by  authority,  no  matter 
how  weighty  it  may  be.  We  may  not  without 
fresh  examination  accept  the  judgement  of  the 
wisest  men  of  the  olden  time.  Their  view  is 
brought  forward  by  way  of  contrast  merely  be- 
cause it  is  definite  and  does  possess  an  obvious 
likeness  to  the  probability  of  truth.  We  have 
made  so  many  contributions  to  knowledge  that 
we  shall  not  be  dominated  even  by  the  mind  of 
Plato,  especially  at  a  moment  when  we  are  about 
to  add  the  mastery  of  the  air  to  our  mastery  of 
the  earth  and  the  waters  which  cover  it. 

The  contribution  which  we  have  made  to  the  sci- 
ence of  education  amounts  to  this :  that  the  study 
of  the  classics  is  useless,  and  that  study  alone  is 
valuable  which  has  something  to  do  with  science. 
As  a  result  the  issue  is  not  now  between  classical 
education  and  scientific  education,  but  between 
any  education  whatever  and  no  education  at  all. 
In  reality  there  never  was  any  real  contest  be- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  109 

tween  science  and  classics,  because  all  education 
is  one.  Science  merely  aims  at  establishing  the 
orderly  continuity  and  development  of  created 
things,  and  classics  the  continuity  of  the  intellect 
and  of  the  emotions ;  it  becomes  thereby  a  part 
of  science  in  itself.  Previous  to  Mr.  Huxley's 
time  science  was  considered,  in  English-speaking 
communities  at  least,  to  have  only  to  do  with  a 
backward  and  forward,  instead  of  a  rotary,  move- 
ment of  the  fists  for  purposes  of  self-defence; 
and  it  is  not  remarkable  if  he  showed  little  piety 
towards  the  method  by  which  the  persons  who 
held  that  absurd  motion  had  been  educated. 

The  opinion  still  persists,  however,  that  there 
are  two  kinds  of  education,  and  that  choice  should 
be  made  between  them  according  to  the  result 
which  is  desired.  These  are  in  the  main  two :  that 
the  boy  shall  be  educated ;  and  that  he  shall  be 
efficient  in  the  calling  which  he  is  to  follow. 
Roughly  speaking,  a  classical  education  was  an 
attempt  to  realize  the  one ;  the  modern  system  is 
a  frank  attempt  to  arrive  at  the  other.  Up  to  our 
own  time  England  was  the  exponent  of  a  classi- 
cal education,  and  we  must  admit  that  in  some 
way,  whether  by  reason  of  or  in  spite  of  it.  Eng- 
lishmen were  the  best  educated  men  in  the  world. 
They  acquired  a  tincture  of  learning,  a  sense  of 


no  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

fairness  and  of  duty,  a  contempt  of  low  conduct. 
They  feared  God,  honoured  the  king,  and  loved 
their  country.  They  had  character.  But  in  time 
the  discovery  was  made  that,  in  spite  of  this  char- 
acter or  by  reason  of  it,  they  did  not  get  on  in 
the  world  as  well  as  those  who  had  a  different 
education  or  none  at  all.  The  Germans  were 
beating:  them  in  some  fields :  the  Americans  in 
others. 

The  educational  authorities  in  the  United  States 
were  the  first  to  introduce  the  new  learning  into 
their  schools.  Dazzled  by  the  achievements  of  sci- 
ence in  producing  electric  light,  telephones,  and 
buildings  which  scrape  the  sky,  they  were  unable 
to  estimate  the  value  of  these  performances  to 
humanity.  They  assumed  that  it  must  be  immense 
and  a  scientific  education  was  the  thing.  Boys  of 
tender  years  were  set  to  work  forthwith  with 
test-tubes.  They  dissected  plants.  They  looked 
through  lenses,  and  were  told  what  to  see.  Rather, 
tbey  spent  their  time  over  books  on  chemistry, 
botany,  and  biology;  deluding  themselves  into 
the  belief  that  they  were  becoming  educated  by 
acquiring  into  their  memories  a  number  of  unre- 
lated statements. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  acquired  a  certain  prestige  in 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  111 

business.  This  success  has  been  attributed  to  a 
system  of  education  which  made  them  smart, 
whilst  in  reality  it  was  due  to  the  abundance 
of  their  natural  resources,  the  ease  with  which 
those  resources  were  exploited,  and  their  absolute 
freedom  of  trade  over  a  territory  and  with  a  pop- 
ulation of  such  an  extent  as  the  world  has  never 
seen.  From  a  somewhat  careful  study  of  the  bio- 
graphies of  American  "  Captains  of  Industry " 
one  gathers  that  the  factor  which  is  common  to 
all  of  them  is  the  meagreness  of  their  scholastic 
career  by  any  method  whatever. 

There  is  a  body  of  evidence  of  a  material  char- 
acter which  goes  to  show  that  this  system  of  train- 
ing has  ended  by  leaving  the  boy  uneducated 
whilst  it  has  not  given  him  any  knowledge  of  sci- 
ence ;  and  it  is  to  the  United  States  that  we  must 
look  for  its  logical  and  complete  development.  In 
their  public  schools  there  are  16,596,503  boys 
and  girls  at  a  yearly  charge  of  $376,996,472. 
This  calculation  makes  no  allowance  for  the  value 
of  these  young  persons'  time,  which  is  of  some 
value  in  communities  where  attendance  upon 
school  is  considered  only  a  part  and  not  the  whole 
of  life.  From  this  body  of  students  extending  over 
every  State  in  the  Union,  and  embracing  mem- 
bers not  of  the  more  stupid  classes  alone,  a  cer- 


112  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

tain  number  are  drawn  for  examination  for  en- 
trance into  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point. 
This  selection  is  above  the  average  and  includes 
only  those  who  have  passed  through  all  grades  in 
the  public  schools. 

Indeed  last  year,  of  314  boys  who  were  exam- 
ined, 295,  or  90  per  cent,  were  educated  in  public 
schools,  and  the  average  number  of  years  of  at- 
tendance in  these  schools  was  9  years,  11  months. 
Separating  this  into  primary  and  secondary  at- 
tendance, the  average  attendance  in  high  schools 
was  3  years,  3  months ;  and  in  grammar  schools, 
6  years,  8  mouths.  Of  these,  103  had  private  tu- 
toring, wholly  or  in  part ;  135  had  a  college  edu- 
cation of  one  year  or  more,  and  189  had  studied 
the  classics.  Out  of  314  who  took  the  examination, 
265,  or  84  per  cent,  failed  in  one  or  more  sub- 
jects ;  209,  or  66  per  cent,  failed  in  two  or  more 
subjects ;  while  26,  or  eight  per  cent,  failed  in  all. 
Of  the  135  who  enjoyed  at  least  one  year's  in- 
struction in  a  college,  82  failed  to  pass.  The  sub- 
jects of  examination  were  those  which  are  usually 
chosen  for  entrance  to  a  University:  elementary 
algebra ;  plane  geometry ;  English  grammar ;  lit- 
erature and  composition ;  history ;  and  geography. 
It  will  be  observed  that  no  mention  is  made  of 
Latin  or  Greek.  Colonel  Larned,  who  is  in  charge 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION         113 

of  the  Military  Academy,  has  done  a  service  to 
the  cause  of  common-sense  by  exposing  these  re- 
sults, as  he  has  done,  in  the  "  North  American 
Review." 

A  possible  inference  from  these  returns  is  that 
the  boys  were  trained  in  athletics  and  had  acquired 
a  manly  vigour,  if  no  great  profundity  of  scholar- 
ship. But  Colonel  Lamed  dispels  this  illusion  also, 
when  he  informs  us  that  of  these  314  selected  pu- 
pils, 82  were  rejected  on  physical  examination  and 
18  were  placed  upon  probation,  making  a  total  of 
100,  or  30  per  cent.  As  an  illustration  of  what  a 
prolonged  period  of  this  education  will  do  for  a 
boy's  mind,  Colonel  Lamed  cites  the  case  of  a 
pupil  from  New  Jersey,  who  had  been  ten  years 
in  a  grammar  school  and  five  months  at  "  a  tech- 
nological high  school."  He  made  in  algebra  33 
per  cent ;  in  geometry  15 ;  in  grammar  36 ;  in 
composition  and  literature  46 ;  in  geography  52 ; 
in  history  52  per  cent.  He  was  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  Seine  is  in  Northern  Russia  and  the 
Ebro  in  Western  France.  He  writes  "orbet," 
"  gess,"  "orther,"  "  cival,"  "barbarious,"  "  cural." 
He  conceives  of  Rome  as  embracing  "  all  Italy  the 
Holy  Land  or  Jerusalem  " ;  and  of  Feudalism  as 
"  one  family  making  war  on  another  in  their 
castles  "  ;  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  as  "  between 


114  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

Cromwell  and  the  King  " ;  and  of  the  Reforma- 
tion as  the  changing  by  the  people  from  "the 
evile  ways  to  a  more  christian  way  of  living."  He 
reprobates  the  Inquisition  as  "  barbarious  meth- 
ods resorted  to  in  order  to  try  and  convert  a  per- 
son's religion.  These  methods  were  very  cural." 
As  to  the  causes  of  the  war  for  the  Union,  he 
judges  that  "  slavery  was  the  main  aggitation ;  so 
Carolina  done  most  of  the  disputing  and  finely 
ceceeded."  His  grammar  is  no  less  original  in 
conception :  "  If  is  an  infinitive.  It  gives  ground 
to  make  the  sentence  possible,  and  if  removed 
causes  to  become  inoperative," — which  reminds 
one  of  much  other  American  writing,  especially 
in  the  domain  of  medicine. 

From  another  source  we  get  confirmation  of 
this  evidence,  which  shows  that  with  a  more 
purely  scientific  training  the  results  are  not  much 
better.  Mr.  Hornwill,  in  that  important  publica- 
tion, "The  Scientific  American,"  offers  as  illus- 
trations some  examples  drawn  from  answers  to 
examination  papers :  "  The  equator  is  a  menagerie 
Hon  running  round  the  earth.  The  earth's  climate 
is  the  hottest  next  the  creator.  Sound  effects  the 
oratory  nerves.  The  blood  is  putrified  in  the  lungs 
by  inspired  air.  The  axis  of  the  earth  is  an  im- 
aginary line  on  which  the  earth  is  supposed  to 


THE   FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  115 

take  its  daily  routine.  Food  passes  through  the 
elementary  canal.  One  of  the  brightest  stars  is 
called  the  Juniper.  A  watershed  is  a  place  where 
there  is  water  and  rocks  overhead  that  form  a  shed. 
A  watershed  is  a  house  between  two  rivers,  so 
that  a  drop  of  water  falling  on  one  side  of  a  roof 
runs  into  one  river  and  a  drop  on  the  other  side 
goes  into  the  other  river.  A  parallel  straight  line 
is  one  which,  when  produced  to  meet  itself,  does 
not  meet.  Parallel  straight  lines,  even  if  produced 
to  all  eternity,  can  not  expect  to  meet  each  other. 
Air  usually  has  no  weight,  but  when  placed  in  a 
barometer  it  is  found  to  weigh  about  fifteen  pounds 
to  a  square  inch.  If  a  small  hole  were  bored  in 
the  top  of  a  barometer  tube,  the  mercury  would 
shoot  up  in  a  column  thirty  feet  high.  Things 
which  are  equal  to  each  other  are  equal  to  any- 
thing else.  Gravity  is  chiefly  noticeable  in  the 
autumn  when  the  apples  are  falling  from  the 
trees.  Mushrooms  always  grown  in  damp  places 
and  so  they  look  like  umbrellas.  The  probable 
cause  of  earthquakes  may  be  attributed  to  bad 
drainage  and  neglect  of  sewage.  A  steamer  cut 
or  part  the  water  aside ;  but  with  a  sailing  vessel 
it  is  not  the  case,  for  it  sail  up  and  down  on  the 
waves  and  billows.  Electricity  and  lightning  are 
of  the  same  nature,  the  only  difference  being  that 


116  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

lightning  is  often  several  miles  in  length,  while 
electricity  is  only  a  few  inches." 

President  Pritchett  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation 
Fund  for  the  Advancement  of  Teaching  in  his 
annual  report  informs  us  that,  of  the  students 
entering  Harvard  last  year,  58  per  cent  failed  to 
meet  all  requirements.  In  Yale  the  ratio  was  57 
per  hundred.  In  Columbia  75  out  of  145  entrants 
were  "conditioned  "  ;  and  in  New  York  University 
the  numbers  were  36  out  of  41. 

The  main  result  of  the  English  method  was 
that  boys  with  minds  which  were  capable  of  im- 
provement were  educated  and  became  leaders  of 
men.  The  boys  without  such  minds  were  rele- 
gated to  their  own  place  without  loss  of  time  to 
their  teachers  or  waste  of  their  own.  The  aim  of 
the  American  method  is  to  bring  the  whole -mass 
up  to  the  same  level,  with  the  result  that  there  are 
few  leaders  and  many  ill-educated.  This  princi- 
ple finds  its  ultimate  expression  in  those  schools 
which  are  designed  for  the  instruction  of  the  im- 
becile, and  the  re-education,  as  it  is  called,  of 
those  who  have  lost  their  reason  by  accident  or 
disease. 

The  advocates  of  the  classical  method  would 
do  well  to  fix  their  minds  upon  the  essential  util- 
ity of  the  thing,  and  not  upon  any  fanciful  utili- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  117 

tarian  value  which  it  may  possess.  Even  Milton 
fell  into  this  fallacy  when  he  advised  that  boys 
should  read  such  bucolic  writers  as  Cato,  Varro, 
and  the  rural  parts  of  Virgil  and  Ovid,  so  that 
they  might  be  incited  to  improve  the  tillage  of 
their  country.  From  this  it  was  an  easy  descent 
to  the  institutions  of  physic,  so  that  they  might 
learn  "  how  to  manage  a  crudity. "  There  is 
danger  also  in  the  newest  theory  that  Latin  shall 
be  learned  in  order  that  one  may  know  how  to 
write  English.  This  will  do  very  well  for  those 
who  cannot  write  and  must  learn  how  ;  and  yet 
a  travelling  tinker  lodged  in  a  wayside  gaol,  a 
nicely  brought  up  young  lady,  or  a  well-trained 
housemaid,  who  have  been  accustomed  from  their 
youth  up  to  good  models,  will  speak  and  write 
better  English  than  one  may  expect  to  find 
amongst  the  undergraduates  in  the  classical  de- 
partment of  an  American  University. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  account  which  is  com- 
monly given  of  the  value  of  a  classical  education 
is  the  correct  one.  It  is  alleged  that  it  trains  the 
boy  to  think,  to  reason,  to  arrive  at  exact  conclu- 
sions, and  to  entertain  correct  opinions.  I  think 
that  the  value  of  a  classical  education  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  pupil  passes  his  time  without  de- 
bauching his  mind  with  facts  which  for  him  are 


118  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

only  half  truths  because  they  are  ill-compre- 
hended. He  is  not  tempted  by  the  fancied  utility 
of  the  thing  which  he  is  learning  to  "  swallow  his 
philosophy  by  mouthfuls,"  to  take  short  cuts,  to 
take  refuge  in  words.  The  boy  who  has  a  mind 
can  learn  classics:  the  boy  who  has  no  mind 
cannot,  and  he  is  not  persuaded  that  he  knows 
a  thing  when  he  does  not  know  it.  The  words 
of  the  dialogue  in  "  The  Clouds "  apply  to 
him  : 

^^Pheidip.  What  can  I  learn  or  profit  from  such 

teachers  ? 
Streps.  But  first  and  foremost  thou  canst  learn  to 
know 
Thyself,  how  totally  unlearn'd  thou  art ; 
How  mere  a  blockhead  and  how  dull  of  brain." 

He  does  not  hear  that  fatal  call  to  the  uninspired, 
of  which  Mr.  Benson  speaks,  nor  does  he  enter 
in  at  that  door  which  the  modern  method  opens  to 
the  incompetent. 

The  boy  who  spends  ten  years  in  a  classical 
school  has  upon  the  surface  some  fifty  thousand 
lines  of  Latin  and  some  Greek  to  show  for  it. 
Their  meaning  is  lost  upon  him.  It  will  not  occur 
to  him  that  these  languages  were  ever  employed 
by  living  men  for  the  expression  of  hate,  cupidity, 
or  love.  His  authors  are  hard  or  easy,  their  writ- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  119 

inofs  a  mere  contexture  of  words.  If  he  is  insensi- 
ble  to  the  sardonic  laughter  and  mordant  ridicule 
of  Juvenal;  the  cold  irony,  the  biting  satire,  and 
pitiless  scorn  of  Tacitus ;  the  airy  grace  of  Lucian ; 
the  wide  humanity  of  Cicero  ;  the  urbanity  of 
Horace ;  the  histrionic  display  which  Caesar 
makes,  or  the  flexibility  which  Livius  lends  to 
his  vocabulary  ;  he  is  also  insensible  to  the  lubri- 
city of  Catullus,  the  licentious  fancy  of  Ovid,  and 
to  the  facile  sycophancy,  the  gross  literalness,  the 
brilliant  prurience,  and  unabashed  mendicancy  of 
Martial.  If  one  can  imagine  a  young  Japanese 
reading  a  few  chapters  of  Justin  McCarthy's  vol- 
umes or  a  play  by  Mr.  G.  B.  Shaw,  in  ignorance 
of  the  fact  that  these  great  writers  were  Irishmen, 
he  will  gain  some  notion  of  the  degree  of  intelli- 
gence which  the  average  school-boy  brings  to 
bear  upon  his  classics.  Both  are  dead  to  the  sub- 
stance and  dead  to  the  form.  For  such  purposes 
as  it  is  alleged  are  served  by  a  reading  of  these 
ancient  writers,  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  would 
do  quite  as  well.  But  the  real  purpose  would  be 
missed,  —  a  detachment  of  mind,  the  pure,  ingenu- 
ous simplicity  and  peace  of  boyhood,  a  lack  of 
curiosity,  a  calmness  of  intellect,  a  quietness  of 
emotion,  which  permits  of  a  healthful  growth.  In 
the  very  uselessness  of  his  tasks  and  in  the  drilling 


120  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

and  drudgery  which  their  mastery  demands  is  to 
the  boy  their  highest  value  as  a  disciplinary 
measure.    It  is  in  this  that  education  consists. 

Another  advantage  of  this  hard  and  fast  cur- 
riculum, as  Professor  Macnaughton  insists,  was 
that  in  due  season  it  stimulated  a  curiosity  about 
those  things  which  lay  outside.  Latin  and  Greek 
were  so  difficult  that  the  boy  was  driven  for  relief 
to  English  writers,  who  then  had  all  the  relish  of 
stolen  waters  or  bread  eaten  in  secret,  —  a  liter- 
ary food  which  boys  now  disdain  because  there 
is  danger  of  being  examined  about  the  nature 
of  it. 

A  remarkably  intelligent  woman  defended  the 
English  public  schools  by  appealing  to  their  suc- 
cess in  producing  governors.  This  comment  is 
not  nearly  so  absurd  as  it  seems,  although,  as 
Dean  Walton  remarked,  the  proportion  of  such 
persons  must  be  extremely  small.  The  boy  was 
taught  no  formulae,  and  he  went  to  his  appointed 
task  with  an  open  mind,  trusting  to  his  own  in- 
stincts and  the  genius  of  his  race.  The  best  in- 
structed communities  govern  themselves  worst, 
because  they  are  so  wise  that  they  create  a  theory 
of  government  instead  of  abiding  by  experience. 
Kansas  is  the  least  illiterate  State  in  the  Union  and 
it  has  the  worst  lejrislation.  Each  man  is  so  wise 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  121 

that  lie  wishes  to  govern  everyone  else,  and  he  is 
not  wise  enough  to  perceive  that  the  foolishness  of 
all  the  people  is  more  valuable  than  the  wisdom 
of  any  individual.  The  English  boy  of  eighteen 
who  has  spent  ten  years  at  classics  is  as  ignorant 
of  classics  as  the  American  boy  who  has  spent  an 
equal  length  of  time  at  science  is  ignorant  of  sci- 
ence. The  one,  however,  is  consciously  ignorant ; 
the  other  is  unconscious  that  his  knowledge  is  so 
incomplete  that  it  amounts  to  misinformation. 

This  governor  in  2wsse  had  suspected  from  his 
classical  studies,  slight  though  they  were,  that 
there  were  people  in  the  world  before  his  time, 
and  that  their  civilization  was  different  from  his 
own.  He  had  possibly  read  in  the  "  Antigone  "  of 
Sophocles  that  the  Greeks  held  it  as  a  horrible 
thing  that  a  dead  body  should  remain  unburied. 
Consequently  he  would  acquire  a  toleration  of  other 
ideas  which  to  him  were  equally  absurd,  and  a 
sympathy  with  the  peoples  who  held  them.  By 
this  flexibility  of  imagination  he  could  enter  into 
the  mind  of  the  Hindoo  and  discover  that  it  has 
much  in  common  with  the  Greek ;  he  would  com- 
prehend strange  religions,  and  appreciate  the  sig- 
nificance of  practices  which  were  alien  to  his 
own  experience.  That  is  the  first  lesson  which  an 
Imperial  people  has  to  learn. 


122  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

I  am  far  from  pretending  that  there  is  a  magi- 
cal efficacy  in  the  classics,  apart  from  the  environ- 
ment of  masters  and  scholars,  and  the  tradition 
of  the  schools  in  which  they  are  taught,  or  that 
ignorance  of  science,  history,  and  geogi'aphy  is 
in  itself  a  virtue.  Yet  that  man  alone  is  educated 
who  is  competent  to  enter  into  the  heritage  of  all 
the  ages,  by  living  over  again  and  integrating  in 
himself  the  intellectual  life  of  the  race  at  the 
various  levels  of  its  achievement.  By  watching 
eagerly  and  disinterestedly  the  whole  pageant  of 
humanity  unfold  itself,  he  will  get  a  grasp  of  the 
plan  and  purpose  of  it,  and  by  knowing  it  learn 
to  love  it.  Life  has  no  meaning  unless  one  can 
see  the  whole  of  it ;  and  the  present  can  be  fresh- 
ened only  by  a  new  sense  of  its  vital  connexion 
with  the  past.  That  is  the  meaning  of  all  the  re- 
nascences. If  a  man  would  enter  into  the  king- 
dom, he  must  go  to  school  as  a  little  child  in  the 
childhood  of  the  race,  and  use  the  classics  as  his 
book ;  but  the  two  streams  of  classics  and  science 
must  eventually  unite,  if  the  accumulated  expe- 
rience of  the  past  and  the  present  would  be  ade- 
quately transmitted  to  the  generations  which  are 
to  come. 

In  every  occupation  there  is  a  kind  of  profes- 
sional cant,  and  in  none  is  it  so  elaborately  framed 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  123 

as  in  that  which  is  technically  known  as  profes- 
sorial. The  last  man  in  the  world  to  whom  we 
should  apply  for  a  correct  opinion  upon  the  value 
of  a  thing  is  he  who  is  engaged  in  doing  it.  A 
Highland  piper  is  apt  to  possess  an  exaggerated 
notion  of  the  place  of  music  in  the  world  and  the 
pleasure  which  it  gives,  especially  of  that  music 
which  he  performs  so  well.  To  the  tympanist  the 
sound  of  the  drum  alone  gives  coherence  to  the 
various  sounds  which  are  produced  by  other  mem- 
bers of  the  orchestra;  and  I  have  heard  the 
lecturer  on  poultry  in  an  important  University 
declare  that  the  rearing  of  hens  was  the  best  pos- 
sible training  for  the  memory,  as  the  birds  resem- 
bled each  other  so  closely  whilst  in  reality  they 
were  different.  The  lecturer  in  classics  did  not 
agree  with  him ;  he  thought  that  learning  words 
out  of  a  dictionary  was  a  better  method.  It  is  the 
professor  who  is  most  completely  convinced  of  the 
importance  to  the  world  of  that  kind  of  education 
which  he  gives.  He  is  the  University,  but  that 
does  not  prove  the  value  of  the  professor,  of  the 
University,  or  of  the  business  in  which  both  are 
engaged.  That  must  be  determined  by  other  con- 
siderations entirely. 

There  is  a  great  gulf  fixed  between  professing 
to  know  about  a  thing  and  knowing  it  in  reality  ; 


124  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

and  there  is  a  still  greater  gulf  between  knowing 
about  a  thing  and  the  doing  of  it.  The  utmost 
which  is  demanded  of  a  professor  is  that  he  shall 
talk  about  things ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  comment 
that  talk  about  a  thing  grows  more  exuberant 
after  it  has  passed  away.  Whilst  the  Italians  of 
the  fifteenth  century  were  painting  pictures  there 
were  no  professors  of  art,  and  no  professors  of 
literature  when  the  Elizabethans  were  writing 
their  immortal  poetry.  Sophocles  and  ^schylus 
wrote  their  tragedies  before  Aristotle  showed 
them  how.  The  middle  Victorian  era,  in  which 
there  was  no  art  to  admire,  was  the  period  when 
the  art  of  talking  about  art  was  best  understood. 
In  America  to-day,  —  and  Professor  Leacock 
has  reminded  us  very  forcibly  that  Canada  is  in 
America,  —  where  there  is  neither  art,  nor  litera- 
ture, nor  education,  fifteen  thousand  professors 
are  lecturing  before  a  hundred  thousand  students 
in  the  higher  institutions  of  learning. 

n 

Every  professor  must  have  asked  himself  the 
question,  at  least  once  in  his  lifetime,  —  Why 
does  a  University  exist?  During  that  long  period 
between  the  death  of  learning  and  the  birth  of 
science,  if  the  question  occurred  to  a  professor 
in  those  leisure  moments  after  the  siesta  was  over 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION         125 

and  the  carp  fed,  he  would  probably  reply  that 
the  precise  function  of  a  University  was  to  do 
nothing,  and  that  a  professor  was  performing  his 
whole  duty  by  being  a  professor,  an  example  of 
attainment,  just  as  a  priest  was  held  to  justify  his 
existence  by  being  a  priest. 

But  in  time,  the  enquiring  habit  of  mind  which 
people  have  developed  under  the  influence  of  eco- 
nomic necessity  and  of  the  scientific  method,  and 
the  rising  conscience  within  the  academic  body, 
have  constrained  the  Universities  to  give  a  more 
adequate  account  of  themselves  in  justification  of 
their  existence.  In  short,  they  are  explaining  their 
usefulness  to  the  community. 

The  most  specific  account  which  has  been  given 
in  recent  years  of  what  is  assumed  to  be  at  least 
one  function  of  a  University  is  that  which  is  con- 
tained in  the  Report  of  a  Joint  Committee  of  Ox- 
ford University  and  Working-class  Representa- 
tives on  the  Relation  of  the  University  to  the 
Higher  Education  of  Work-people.  This  Report 
was  issued  at  the  end  of  the  year  1908,  and  bears 
as  title  "  Oxford  and  Working-class  Education." 
It  may  be  obtained  from  the  Clarendon  Press  for 
the  sum  of  one  shilling. 

It  is  conceivable,  of  course,  that  in  the  long 
period  of  a  thousand  years  the  function  of  a  Uni- 
versity may  have  changed,  and  no  one,  least  of 


126  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

all  the  professors,  be  aware  of  the  fact.  In  Eng> 
land  many  of  the  colleges  which  constitute  the 
Universities  were  organized  for  the  benefit  of 
*'poor  men  living  on  alms,"  paiiperes  ex  eleemo- 
syna  viventes,  because,  as  William  of  Wykeham 
in  founding  New  College  in  1386  affirmed, "  Christ 
among  his  works  of  mercy  hath  commanded  men 
to  receive  the  poor  into  their  houses  and  merci- 
fully to  comfort  the  indigent."  In  certain  other 
colleges  the  members  were  forbidden  to  keep  dogs, 
on  the  ground  that  "  to  give  to  dogs  the  bread  of 
the  children  of  man  is  not  fitting  for  those  who 
live  on  alms."  The  members  were  not  "  poor  men  " 
exclusively  in  all  colleges.  The  foundress  of  Bal- 
liol  urged  the  richer  ones  to  live  "  so  temperately 
as  not  to  weigh  down  the  poor  by  reason  of  bur- 
densome expenses,"  and  she  urged  the  fellows  to 
choose  as  a  scholar  the  candidate  who  combined 
poverty,  excellence  of  character,  and  learning. 
In  the  statutes  for  Merton  the  foundation  was  not 
for  really  poor  men,  but  for  pauperes  secundarii, 
or  second-class  poor.  Other  colleges  were  designed 
by  great  prelates  as  an  accommodation  for  per- 
sons who  by  blood  or  other  ties  were  dependent 
upon  them. 

In  the  United  States  also,  the  various  colleges 
were  organized  for  a  specific  purpose.  Yale  was 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  127 

chartered  in  1701  for  the  propagation  of  Congre- 
gational theology ;  the  college  of  New  Jersey,  com- 
monly called  Princeton,  was  established  in  the  in- 
terests of  Presbyterian  dogma ;  and  Harvard  was 
founded  in  order  that  "  ministers  and  other  use- 
ful persons  might  issue  forth."  It  was  not  long 
before  a  visitor  at  Oxford  was  obliged  to  repri- 
mand the  scholars  in  the  words :  "  Some  there  are 
among  you  who,  desiring  to  live  delicately,  make 
the  modus  of  your  expenditure  to  exceed  that 
which  your  founder  by  rule  appointed" ;  and  Lat- 
imer declared :  "  If  ye  bring  it  to  pass  that  the 
yeomanry  be  not  able  to  put  their  sons  to  school, 
I  say  ye  pluck  salvation  from  the  people.  By 
yeomen's  sons  the  faith  of  Christ  is,  and  hath 
been,  maintained  chiefly."  The  English  colleges, 
like  the  American,  were  especially  designed  for 
purposes  which  in  those  days  were  believed  to  have 
something  to  do  with  religion,  but  no  English  lad 
now  goes  to  Oxford  because  he  is  poor  and  few 
because  they  are  religious,  any  more  than  an 
American  boy  goes  to  Yale  because  he  is  imbued 
with  the  tenets  of  Congregationalism ;  or  to  Prince- 
ton because  his  lips  have  been  touched  with  a 
coal  from  a  Presbyterian  altar ;  or  to  Harvard  be- 
cause he  is  desirous  of  becoming  a  minister  or  even 
an  otherwise  "  useful  person."  In  time  the  Uni- 


128  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

versities  which  were  founded  for  purposes  of  learn- 
ing and  religion  came  to  exist  for  the  benefit  of 
professors  who  were  not  necessarily  learned  or 
religious,  and  there  seemed  nothing  incongruous 
in  the  transformation. 

One  should  not  fail  to  notice  that  these  institu- 
tions continue  to  be  conducted  for  the  benefit  of 
the  staff  as  well  as  for  the  benefit  of  the  student, 
because  it  has  something  to  do  with  the  rivalry 
which  exists  between  Universities  in  "attracting  " 
young  men  by  offering  them  opportunities  for 
learning  a  trade ;  since,  when  the  students  are 
gathered  together,  the  public  may  be  appealed  to 
for  support  on  the  ground  of  increasing  num- 
bers, as  a  man  might  plead  the  excuse  of  an  in- 
creasing family  for  obtaining  public  charity.  This 
is  the  origin  of  the  bitterness  between  the  Uni- 
versity of  New  York  and  Columbia,  as  disclosed 
in  the  recent  writings  of  President  MacCracken 
of  the  smaller  institution,  who  alleges  that  Colum- 
bia is  attempting  to  "freeze  him  out"  by  protest- 
ing that  there  is  room  for  only  one  University  in 
New  York.  It  was  he,  I  believe,  who  first  employed 
the  term  "  educational  trust." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  ancient  belief  is  a 
mistaken  one,  that  a  University  exists  for  the  pre- 
servation and  advancement  of  learning  and  for 


THE  FALLACY   IN  EDUCATION  129 

the  formation  of  character  by  a  process  known  as 
education.  Possibly  the  modern  belief  is  the  cor- 
rect one,  that  the  function  of  a  University  is  the 
teaching  of  trades.  So  important  a  divergence  of 
opinion  might  well  be  investigated  by  professors  of 
education,  to  ascertain  if  the  one  is  exactly  right 
and  the  other  exactly  wrong. 

It  is  a  common  belief,  especially  in  England, 
that  the  American  Universities  have  endeavoured 
to  make  their  usefulness  apparent  by  casting  away 
any  tradition  of  learning  and  religion  which  may 
have  lingered  beyond  its  time.  Indeed  there  ap- 
pears to  be  some  ground  for  this  view  of  the  case. 
One  of  themselves  has  said  it.  The  "  Evening 
Post,"  February  6th,  1909,  gives  a  vivid  account 
of  the  manifold  activities  of  the  American  student, 
which,  if  not  entirely  accurate,  will  serve  for  pur- 
poses of  illustration  :  "  From  early  September  to 
Thanksgiving  Day  there  is  football,  with  the  only 
intermission  of  election  day,  when  the  under- 
graduate is  a  '  husky  watcher '  at  the  polls  in  the 
interest  of  some  reform  movement.  From  Decem- 
ber 1st  to  the  middle  of  January  he  plays  basket- 
ball, trains  for  hockey,  and  accepts  sporadic  en- 
gagements as  strike-breaker  and  tenement-house 
investigator.  Then  comes  the  first  snow,  and  for 
nearly  a  month   he  is   with  the  street-cleaning 


130  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

department.  He  works  odd  days  for  the  Interbor- 
ough  Company,  testing  how  fast  a  car  can  be 
emptied,  and  filled  by  means  of  the  tandem  for- 
mation. The  last  two  weeks  in  February  he  passes 
his  days  in  the  psychological  laboratory,  being 
tested  for  colour  and  rhythm-sense  and  living  on 
benzoate  of  soda.  In  March,  indoor  baseball  prac- 
tice begins.  In  April,  spring  practice  on  the  river 
begins.  From  June  to  September  he  plays  sum- 
mer baseball.  After  four  years  of  such  toil,  he 
gets  his  deserved  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts." 

In  some  institutions  courses  are  offered  in  card- 
ing and  spinning,  weaving  and  dyeing,  and  a  de- 
gree of  Bachelor  of  Engineering  is  offered  at  the 
end  of  this  study  of  textile  industry.  The  Uni- 
versity is  put  to  the  question :  "  Do  you  pay  ?  " 
The  matter  is  quite  frankly  stated  in  the  calen- 
dars of  the  smaller  American  Colleges.  In  one 
we  read :  "  Does  it  pay  to  educate  ?  What  are 
you  worth  ?  As  a  servant,  $140  a  year.  As  a  day 
labourer,  $300  a  year.  As  a  farm  hand,  $240  a 
year.  What  may  you  be  worth  ?  As  a  teacher, 
$500  a  year  up.  As  a  business  man,  from  $1,000 
a  year  up.  Conclusion:  Why  not  increase  your 
value  ?  Education  only  will  do  it."  In  other  forms 
it  appears  thus :  "  College  men  draw  better  sala- 
ries than  other  men  and  succeed  better  in  busi- 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  131 

ness  undertakings  " ;  "  Demand  for  our  graduates 
over  five  times  more  than  can  be  filled";  "Our 
graduates  are  sought  for  the  most  lucrative  and 
responsible  positions;  one  of  them  handled  over 
a  million  dollars  for  his  firm  in  one  year."  Even 
in  the  Faculty  of  Arts,  especially  of  the  smaller 
Universities,  the  students  are  merely  learning  the 
trade  of  a  schoolmaster,  or  rather  of  a  schoolmis- 
tress, since  the  boys  are  being  rapidly  turned  out 
of  that  "  profession  "  by  the  girls,  to  take  refuge 
in  the  engineering  classes.  I  am  not  questioning 
the  value  of  these  achievements,  but  merely  ex- 
pressing a  doubt  that  their  accomplishment  has 
anything  to  do  with  a  University. 

It  is  a  common  belief,  especially  in  America, 
that  a  different  view  prevails  in  England,  of 
which  the  late  Dean  Johnson  was  the  best  expo- 
nent. This  shrewd  observer  was  never  done  pro- 
testing that  men  who  were  concerned  only  about 
becoming  surveyors,  miners,  engineers,  lawyers, 
dentists,  doctors,  and  builders,  had  no  place  in  the 
company  of  men  who  desired  an  education  for  the 
sake  of  its  effect,  real  or  fancied,  upon  the  indi- 
vidual. He  observed  that "  engineering  students  " 
wore  overalls,  smoked  their  pipes,  and  cursed. 
He  had  previously  observed  that  plumbers  also 
were  addicted  to  these  practices,  and  he  could 


132  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

detect  no  essential  distinction  between  the  two 
classes,  although  he  did  remark  that  a  plumber 
was  a  plumber;  whereas  these  graduates  knew 
little  or  nothing  of  their  business  upon  the  day 
of  leaving  the  University  and  entering  into  the 
world.  The  time  to  study  the  application  of  sci- 
ence, he  thought,  was  after,  and  not  before,  one 
had  acquired  a  scientific  mind,  and  the  time  to 
develop  a  scientific  mind  was  after  it  had  been 
educated.  The  principles  of  engineering,  he  ad- 
mitted, might  well  be  taught,  even  in  a  University 
which  was  concerned  with  education,  to  those  who 
were  qualified  to  receive  instruction ;  but  to  en- 
able a  boy  to  manage  an  unreal  steam-engine,  to 
bestow  upon  him  an  agility  in  looking  out  figures 
from  tables  and  ordinates  from  curves  of  this  or 
that  function  was  not  to  make  of  him  either  an 
educated  man  or  an  engineer.  Certainly  an  un- 
prejudiced observer  will  find  matter  for  wonder 
in  a  University  which  confers  a  doctorate  upon  a 
man  who  is  expert  in  remedying  defects  in  the 
teeth,  and  has  a  chair  which  is  filled  by  a  pro- 
fessor of  "  orthodontia,"  whilst  it  refuses  equal 
recognition  to  the  man  who  wipes  a  joint,  or  does 
"crown  and  bridge  work"  upon  material  which 
is  not  attached  to  the  human  frame. 

This  belief,  however,  that  the  Universities  of 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  133 

England  regard  their  charters  as  valid  only  so 
long  as  they  have  something  to  do  with  the  pre- 
servation and  advancement  of  learning  is  not  so 
commonly  held  since  the  publication  of  this  Re- 
port to  which  I  have  referred.  Nothing  could  be 
more  admirable  than  the  form  in  which  it  states 
the  case  for  direct  utility.  The  argument  is  con- 
ducted with  a  full  desire  for  fairness,  a  spirit  of 
concession,  a  sweetness  of  temper,  and  a  winsome- 
ness,  which  convinces  one  that  the  University  has 
wrought  her  perfect  work  upon  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  those  who  were  engaged  upon  it,  even 
upon  those  members  who  are  described  as  work- 
ing-class representatives,  although  one  would  be 
willing  to  learn  what  part  they  had  in  the  expres- 
sion of  sentiments  so  beautiful  in  themselves  and 
so  admirably  stated,  especially  the  part  which  was 
taken  by  one  member  of  the  Committee,  who  is 
described  as  High  Secretary  of  the  Independent 
Order  of  Rechabites.  A  note  might  well  have 
been  added  to  the  Report  defining  exactly  what 
a  Rechabite  is,  so  that  one  might  form  some  opin- 
ion of  his  capacity  for  entertaining  correct  opin- 
ions upon  education.  If  he  had  descended  from 
Jonadab,  the  son  of  Rechab,  by  ordinary  genera- 
tion, we  might  be  disposed  to  accept  his  opinion 
upon  the  undesirability  of  building  houses,  sow- 


134  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

ing  seed,  planting  vineyards,  and  drinking  wine  ; 
and  yet  question  his  authority  in  matters  pertain- 
ing to  a  University  which  neither  dwells  in  tents, 
nor  abstains  from  "  pots  full  of  wine  and  cups." 
This  Keport  is  merely  an  amplification  of  the 
enquiry  which  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  informs  us 
was  addressed  to  his  brother,  Sir  James  Fitz- 
james  Stephen,  by  their  tutor :  "  Stephen,  major ; 
if  you  do  not  write  good  longs  and  shorts,  how 
can  you  ever  be  a  man  of  taste  ?  If  you  are  not  a 
man  of  taste,  how  can  you  ever  hope  to  be  of  use 
in  the  world?"  The  Committee  has  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  in  a  University  education 
alone  lies  the  sovereign  remedy  for  all  social  ills, 
and  they  appear  to  believe  that  those  who  suffer 
from  those  ills  are  under  a  similar  misapprehen- 
sion. They  tell  us  that  "education  of  the  highest 
type  given  by  the  Universities  has  entered  into 
the  consciousness  of  large  bodies  of  organized 
work-people  as  an  essential  element  in  their  con- 
ception of  human  welfare  " ;  and  "  that  the  eleven 
millions  who  weave  our  cloths,  build  our  houses, 
and  carry  us  safely  on  our  journeys  demand  Uni- 
versity education  in  order  that  they  may  face 
with  wisdom  the  unsolved  problem  of  their  pre- 
sent position."  There  are  other  things  also  which 
appear  to  have  entered  at  least  into  a  portion  of 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION         135 

their  consciousness :  that  they  should  receive  ten 
hours'  pay  for  eight  hours'  work,  that  in  their  old 
age  they  should  be  supported  by  their  more  thrifty 
neighbours,  and  that  they  should  enter  Parlia- 
ment. We  are  all  too  prone  to  believe  that  human 
welfare  lies  alone  in  a  class  which  is  different 
from  our  own. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  the  working- 
classes — if  one  must  continue  to  employ  the  words 
of  the  Report  —  are  mistaken  and  the  professors 
are  mistaken  too,  in  assuming  that  a  University 
education,  or  any  other  education  which  has  its 
origin  in  books,  is  of  much  value  for  a  workman 
or  a  professor  either,  unless  the  individual  has  a 
mind  which  will  profit  by  it.  The  experiment  has 
been  tried  for  the  past  hundred  years.  It  has  not 
produced  educated  men,  and  it  has  produced  in- 
efficient workmen. 

The  movement  for  adult  education  began  late 
in  the  eighteenth  century,  at  a  time  when  all  forms 
of  folly  were  even  more  rife  than  they  are  now. 
In  the  outset  it  was  of  a  religious  nature,  and  the 
benefits  which  were  obtained  from  religion  were 
wrongly  attributed  to  the  education  with  which 
it  was  associated.  With  the  increasing  applica- 
tion of  science  to  industry  it  was  supposed  that 
a  new  education  was  required,  and  Mechanics' 


136  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

Institutes  attempted  to  supply  the  need.  By  the 
middle  of  the  century  the  attempt  ended  in  fail- 
ure. It  was  found  that  the  preliminary  equipment 
of  the  student  who  had  never  attended  an  ele- 
mentary school  was  too  small  for  him  to  make 
good  use  of  lectures  and  classes.  In  all  there  was 
probably  some  disillusionment  and  disappoint- 
ment when  it  was  found  that  the  direct  effects  of 
technical  institutions  in  bettering  the  material 
condition  of  the  individual  workman  were  com- 
paratively small. 

These  two  attempts  were  followed  by  Univer- 
sity extension  education.  Between  1885  and  1908, 
32,146  lectures  were  delivered  under  the  control 
of  the  Oxford  University  Extension  Delegacy 
alone,  in  577  centres,  to  424,500  students.  Upon 
the  success  of  this  movement  the  present  Report 
affords  valuable  information.  It  was  found  that 
so  long  as  the  system  was  compelled  to  be  finan- 
cially self-supporting,  so  long  must  the  lecturer 
attract  large  audiences ;  it  was  necessary  that  852 
persons  attend  the  lecture  of  a  second-class  lec- 
turer to  raise  the  money  necessary  to  pay  the  fee. 
The  lecturers  and  the  subject  had  to  be  chosen 
not  on  account  of  their  educative  value,  but  with 
a  view  to  the  probability  of  their  drawing  such 
large  audiences  that  the  lectures  would  pay.  Sue- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  137 

cess  then  tended  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  quan- 
tity not  of  quality,  and  if  the  members  fell  off 
from  a  course,  it  had  to  be  replaced  by  another 
which  was  more  likely  to  draw.  The  lecturer  then 
became  an  orator  addressing  a  public  audience. 
Sir  Robert  Morant  got  at  the  truth  of  the  matter 
when  he  said  that  it  was  not  more  lectures  that 
were  required,  but  real  solid  work. 

The  Report  recognizes  frankly  another  diffi- 
culty when  it  states :  "  It  too  often  happens  that 
a  teacher  fails  almost  entirely  when  confronted 
with  a  working-class  audience  because  he  has 
started  from  a  point  of  view  so  different  from 
theirs  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  the  mind  of 
students  and  teachers  ever  to  come  into  real  con- 
tact with  each  other.  The  things  which  he  regards 
as  important  have  seemed  to  them  trivial,  and 
he  has  never  really  touched  the  problems  upon 
which  their  minds  are  exercised."  Accordingly  the 
teacher  is  advised  to  take  special  steps  to  get  into 
touch  with  the  working-classes,  to  appreciate  and 
sympathize  with  the  point  of  view  from  which 
they  approach  a  subject ;  but  we  are  not  informed 
how  this  is  to  be  done.  It  is  as  difficult  to  gfet  into 
touch  with  the  working-class  as  it  is  to  get  into 
touch  with  a  company  of  Fellows  in  a  Common 
Room,  and  one  "  cannot  sympathize  with  a  point 


138  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

of  view  "  from  which  he  believes  a  false  impres- 
sion is  obtained. 

The  Committee  stumbled  upon  the  truth  un- 
consciously when  they  admitted  that  work-people 
"  will  not  be  content  with  any  substitute  for  Uni- 
versity education  which  assumes  that  they  will  be 
unable  to  enter  the  University,"  since  "  a  Univer- 
sity Extension  student,  though  he  may  win  a  cer- 
tificate, is  not  as  yet  stamped  thereby  with  the 
hallmark  of  an  educated  man  in  the  same  way  as 
is  the  recipient  of  even  a  pass  degree  at  Oxford." 
There  is  the  fact  forced  home  bluntly  :  it  is  the 
hallmark  which  is  desired,  and  not  the  quality 
which  an  honest  hallmark  signifies.  Herbert 
Spencer  stated  the  truth  with  that  plainness 
which  was  habitual  to  him  when  he  said :  "  If  we 
inquire  what  is  the  real  motive  for  giving  boys  a 
classical  [University]  education,  we  find  it  to  be 
simply  conformity  to  public  opinion.  To  get  above 
some  and  be  reverenced  by  them,  and  to  propi- 
tiate those  who  are  above  us,  is  the  universal 
struggle  in  which  the  chief  energies  of  life  are  ex- 
pended. We  are  none  of  us  content  with  quietly 
unfolding  our  own  individualities  to  the  full  in 
all  directions ;  but  have  a  restless  craving  to  im- 
press our  individualities  upon  others,  and  in  some 
way  subordinate  them.  This  it  is  which  deter- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  139 

mines  the  character  of  our  education.  Not  what 
knowledge  is  of  most  real  worth  is  the  considera- 
tion ;  but  what  will  bring  most  applause,  honour, 
and  respect,  —  what  will  most  conduce  to  social 
position  and  influence,  —  what  will  be  most  im- 
posing. As,  throughout  life,  not  what  we  are,  but 
what  we  shall  be  thought,  is  the  question ;  so  in 
education,  the  question  is,  not  the  intrinsic  value 
of  knowledge,  so  much  as  its  extrinsic  effects  on 
others." 

In  direct  opposition  to  this  statement,  which 
bears  upon  its  face  some  appearance  of  probabil- 
ity, the  Committee  answers  its  own  questions  — 
*'  To  what  will  the  education  which  we  wish  Ox- 
ford to  offer  to  work-people  lead?"  "We  have 
already  expressed  an  opinion  that  the  demand  for 
University  education  made  by  work-people  is  not 
so  much  for  the  facilities  to  enable  their  children 
to  compete  successfully  with  members  of  other 
classes  for  positions  of  social  dignity  and  emolu- 
ment, as  to  enable  workmen  to  fulfil  with  greater 
efficiency  their  duties  which  they  owe  to  their 
own  class,  and,  as  members  of  their  class,  to  the 
whole  nation.  There  can  therefore  be  no  doubt 
that,  with  some  exceptions,  the  working-class  stu- 
dents who  go  to  Oxford  will  at  the  end  of  their 
two  years  of  study  return  to  the  towns  from  which 


140  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

they  came,  and  continue  to  work  at  their  trades, 
as  before."  This  opinion,  however,  is  qualified  by 
the  words, "  The  working-class  demand  that  higher 
education  should  not  sej)arate  the  student  from 
his  own  people  must  not  be  taken  to  imply  that 
it  is  desired  that  he  should  necessarily  return  to 
the  bench  or  the  machine  at  which  he  worked  be- 
fore going  to  Oxford,  but  that  he  should  in  one 
capacity  or  another  use  his  education  in  the  ser- 
vice of  his  fellows."  We  may  well  deplore  the  ad- 
vent of  working-men  to  Oxford  as  classes,  not  as 
individuals,  if  they  import  with  them  the  methods 
of  the  labour  unions,  which  the  students  of  their 
own  peculiar  Ruskin  College  employed  last  April 
in  their  "  foolish  and  disorderly  proceedings " 
against  Principal  Hird. 

The  trend  of  thought  is  further  indicated  in 
another  Section :  "  What  they  desire  is  not  that 
men  should  escape  from  their  class,  but  that  they 
should  remain  in  it  and  raise  its  whole  level. 
They  do  not  wish,  like  the  Scottish  ploughman  of 
fifty  years  ago,  that  their  sons  should  be  made  by 
a  University  education  into  ministers  or  school- 
masters." 

These  Oxford  professors  are  exactly  wrong  and 
the  Scottish  ploughman  was  exactly  right.  They 
treat  the  individual  as  a  member  of  a  class ;  he 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  141 

looked  upon  his  boy  as  a  single  individual,  as  a 
man  in  the  University  and  the  Universe.  If  it  is 
foreordained  from  all  eternity  that  the  world 
shall  be  for  ever  composed  not  of  men  but  of 
classes  of  men  rising  one  upon  the  other  from 
ploughmen,  schoolmasters,  and  ministers,  to  pro- 
fessors, then  a  co-equal  decree  may  possibly  be 
discovered  under  which  the  education  proper  to 
each  class  shall  be  set  forth.  The  present  proposal 
appears  to  be  that  all  men  shall  receive  a  Uni- 
versity education :  and  yet  that  conclusion  is  viti- 
ated by  the  remark  in  another  section,  "  It  seems 
to  us  that  the  task  of  educationalists  in  the  fu- 
ture must  be  to  ennoble  the  status  of  every  class 
by  supplying  it  with  the  form  of  culture  appro- 
priate to  its  needs." 

And  if  the  task  of  educationalists  in  the  future 
must  be  to  ennoble  the  status  of  every  class  by 
supplying  it  with  the  form  of  culture  appropriate 
to  its  needs,  by  what  means  shall  that  form  of 
culture  be  discovered  which  is  appropriate  to  the 
status  of  every  class  ?  By  asking  each  class  what 
it  needs.  The  students  are  to  "  pursue  a  plan  of 
study  drawn  up  by  work-people  and  representa- 
tives of  the  University  in  consultation."  Again, 
it  is  affirmed  that  "  the  advantage  of  throwing  the 
local  management  of  the  classes  into  the  hands  of 


142  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

a  body  representing  working-people  is  that  it  en- 
sures that  the  education  offered  will  meet  the 
needs  of  work-people." 

A  branch  of  the  Amalgamated  Society  of  Rail- 
way Servants  passed  a  resolution, "  that  it  is  inex- 
pedient for  the  working-classes  to  cultivate  a  closer 
relationship  with  Oxford,  until  the  teachings  of 
the  Universities  are  radically  altered,  so  that  a 
truer  view  of  social  questions  maybe  taught, and 
that  it  is  inadvisable  to  send  workmen  students 
to  colleges  until  the  curriculum  is  made  suitable 
for  the  training  of  labour  leaders."  To  this  the 
magnanimous  reply  is  made  that  the  Universities 
should  cooperate  with  the  Railway  Servants,  "  in 
their  efforts  to  obtain  what  they  want  instead  of 
providing,  without  consulting  them,  what  the  Uni- 
versity thinks  they  ought  to  want."  Apparently 
the  opposite  course  led  to  failure,  since  the  admis- 
sion is  made  that  "  the  whole  history  of  the  Uni- 
versity Extension  Movement  shows  that  higher 
education  cannot  be  imposed  upon  work-people 
from  above,  but  must  be  organized  and  managed 
by  men  who  belong  to  themselves.  This  is  in  our 
opinion  a  fundamental  axiom,  the  neglect  of  which 
will  be  followed  by  certain  failure."  And  yet  the 
University  appears  to  believe  that  this  partial 
failure  may  be  turned  into  success  by  a  nearer 


THE   FALLACY  IN    EDUCATION"  143 

approximation  of  extra-mural  teaching  to  the 
teaching  within  the  walls ;  and  this  is  to  be  ac- 
complished by  the  daring  experiment  of  altering 
the  principles  upon  which  for  a  thousand  years 
education  has  been  conducted. 

A  man  who  is  swimming  for  his  life  is  not 
likely  to  make  any  profitable  observations  upon 
meteorology  or  natation ;  and  a  student  who  is 
harassed  by  poverty  is  incapable  of  that  calm  of 
mind  which  is  essential  for  the  education  which 
comes  from  residence  at  a  University.  There  is 
something  piteous  in  the  account  which  the  Com- 
mittee give  from  their  own  experience  of  the  hope- 
less struggle.  "  We  are  well  aware,"  they  say,  "of 
the  great  difficulties  which  beset  the  working-class 
student, — the  lack  of  books,  the  crowded  home, 
the  often  exhausting  and  mechanical  labour,  the 
fear  of  non-employment  that  too  often  absorbs 
his  thoughts.  We  have  known  students  to  sit  up 
not  once  but  regularly,  completing  an  essay,  till 
one  o'clock  at  night,  and  enter  the  mill  next  day 
at  6.30 ;  or  to  attend  classes  on  Saturday  after- 
noon after  a  week  containing  twelve  hours  over- 
time over  and  above  the  standard  53  hours."  We 
can  readily  agree  that  "  a  man  who  is  supporting 
a  family  on  24  shillings  a  week  cannot  afford  and 
ought  not  to  be  expected  to  buy  more  than  one  or 


144  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

two  inexpensive  text-books " ;  but  until  we  are 
informed  what  that  diligent  student  was  writing, 
we  can  offer  no  opinion  upon  his  wisdom.  Indeed 
there  are  very  few  essays  which  would  justify  a 
man's  remaining  out  of  his  bed  either  for  the 
writing  or  the  reading  of  them. 

Much  is  made  of  the  benefits  which  will  follow 
to  the  community  from  a  temporary  intermingling 
of  members  of  various  classes  in  the  University, 
of  the  knowledge  and  suggestions  which  work- 
people may  offer,  and  of  the  very  valuable  insight 
which  they  may  obtain  into  the  working  of  Uni- 
versity institutions.  It  is  not  suggested,  however, 
that  a  professor  should  perfect  his  education  at 
the  lathe  or  the  bench ;  and  no  mention  is  made 
of  the  value  of  his  knowledge  or  suggestions  in  the 
conduct  of  a  factory.  Yet  surely  a  University  is 
quite  as  complicated  a  concern  as  a  workshop. 
We  are  told  that  "  there  must  be  that  free  move- 
ment from  one  class  to  another  that  alone  can  en- 
sure that  the  manual  and  intellectual  work  of  the 
nation  is  performed  by  those  best  fitted  to  perform 
it,  and  that  fresh  streams  of  ability  are  continually 
drawn  from  every  quarter  of  society  "  ;  but  we  are 
not  informed  by  what  process  the  present  gradu- 
ates of  the  University  shall  be  relegated  to  manual 
employments  if  it  is  ascertained  that  they  have 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION         145 

a  more  peculiar  aptitude  for  hand  labour  than  for 
intellectual  pursuits. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  professor  followed  this 
amiable  advice  and  moved  from  his  own  class  into 
the  class  of  the  agricultural  labourer.  He  would 
appear  to  be,  and  would  be  in  reality,  an  ill-edu- 
cated man.  It  would  require  years  of  experience 
before  he  was  at  home  in  his  new  environment, 
before  he  learned  at  what  date  oats  must  be  sown 
in  a  certain  field,  where  was  the  securest  spot  for 
setting  a  night  line,  which  public  house  sold  an 
ale  to  suit  his  palate,  and  where  was  the  most 
delectable  location  in  the  parish  for  sunning  him- 
self on  a  Sunday  afternoon. 

The  kingdom  of  learning  can  be  taken  only  by 
force.  Those  who  earnestly  desire  education  will 
find  the  measure  of  their  desire.  Anything  in 
excess  of  that  is  useless.  There  may  be  as  much 
mental  culture  in  reflecting  upon  one's  inability  to 
procure  a  degree  as  in  accepting  a  degree  which 
is  thrust  upon  one.  But  if  the  degree  is  the  thing, 
it  can  be  obtained  upon  easier  terms  than  the 
Committee  proposes,  even  if  the  recommendation 
be  adopted,  that  scholarships  be  provided  of  such 
an  amount  as  would  enable  a  man  to  maintain 
himself  in  the  University,  and  in  some  cases  as 
would  in  addition  provide  a  margin  to  assist  those 


146  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

who  might  be  dependent  upon  him,  and  who  in 
consequence  of  his  temporary  withdrawal  as  wage- 
earner  might  suffer  great  hardship.  Even  the 
married  man  with  a  family  is  to  be  considered. 
There  are  colleges  in  the  United  States  which 
offer  a  degree  for  fifty  dollars,  with  the  usual  ten 
per  cent  discount,  if  fully  paid  in  advance. 

In  opposition  to  this  theory  that  University 
education  is  the  sovereign  remedy  for  all  indus- 
trial evils,  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  the  letter 
which  Mr.  Jude  Fawley,  stone-mason,  received 
from  T.  Tetuphenay,  the  Master  of  "  Biblioll 
College  "  :  "  Sir,  —  I  have  read  your  letter  with 
interest ;  and,  judging  from  your  description  of 
yourself  as  a  working-man,  I  venture  to  think 
that  you  will  have  a  much  better  chance  of  suc- 
cess in  life  by  remaining  in  your  own  sphere 
and  sticking  to  your  trade  than  by  adopting  any 
other  course.  That,  therefore,  is  what  I  advise 
you  to  do." 

It  is  a  gratuitous  assumption  that  education 
is  found  alone  in  a  University.  There  must  be 
many  educated  men  in  that  class  which  produced 
the  author  of  "  Pilgrim's  Progress " ;  and  it  is 
questionable  if  John  Bunyan  would  have  been 
improved  by  a  period  of  residence  in  the  Oxford 
of  his  day,  or  of  our  own  day  either.  I  am  dis- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  147 

posed  to  think  that  if  those  adscititious  circum- 
stances did  not  exist  which  attract  boys  to  Uni- 
versities, there  would  be  as  large  a  proportion 
of  educated  men  amongst  the  working-classes  as 
amongst  the  holders  of  degrees,  men  of  sincerity, 
candour,  and  simplicity  of  character  and  principle, 
like  that  other  stone-mason  whose  reminiscences 
Mr.  John  Murray  has  just  published. 

The  proposal,  in  short,  of  this  Report  is  to 
lower  the  standard,  to  substitute  for  that  training 
which  is  found  alone  in  schools  where  the  classi- 
cal and  philosophical  tradition  prevails,  a  kind 
of  pseudo-scientific,  hugger-mugger  reading  of 
literature,  politics,  economics,  and  languages, 
such  as  is  considered  ample  in  American  Uni- 
versities. And  yet  the  committee  had  for  its  guid- 
ance the  results  of  this  new  method  as  applied 
not  only  to  secondary  education,  but  also  as  em- 
ployed in  institutions  for  the  higher  learning. 
The  evidence  is  contained  in  a  report  by  Mr. 
F.  I.  Wylie,  secretary  to  the  Rhodes  Trustees, 
upon  the  attainment  of  the  scholars  who  went  to 
Oxford  from  the  United  States.  Mr.  Wylie  with 
proper  reticence  gives  it  merely  as  the  "  prevail- 
ing opinion "  that  they  have  shown  themselves 
alert  and  versatile,  but  wanting  in  thoroughness ; 
or,  "  to  put  it  in  its  baldest  form,  the  criticism 


148  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

most  often  heard  is  that  the  American  student, 
while  keener  than  the  average  undergraduate,  is 
more  superficial  and  more  easily  satisfied."  When 
Mr.  Wylie  speaks  of  the  examination  of  these 
scholars  who  came  as  picked  men  and  weighted 
with  a  whole  State's  learning  and  prestige,  he 
describes  their  performance  as  "  very  creditable." 
For  the  benefit  of  those  who  may  not  appre- 
ciate the  fine  significance  of  this  peculiarly  Ox- 
ford judgement,  Mr.  Fox  of  New  Haven,  where 
Yale  College  is  situated,  undertook  an  exposition 
in  the  "  Evening  Post,"  October  31st,  1908 ;  and 
he  did  it  with  a  scientific  frankness  for  which 
he  deserves  the  praise  of  all  persons  who  are 
fond  of  sound  learning.  From  the  United 
States  there  were  81  scholars  at  Oxford,  of 
whom  all  but  six  were  college  graduates,  and 
presumably  the  average  age  was  two  years 
greater  than  that  of  their  competitors.  Mr.  Fox, 
after  an  exhaustive  analysis,  sums  up:  "The 
comparison  of  these  results  with  those  achieved 
by  the  Englishmen  themselves  or  by  the  Colo- 
nials is  not  favourable  to  the  United  States,  es- 
pecially in  the  two  most  important  schools  of 
Literae  Humaniores  and  Modern  History.  In  the 
two  years  1907  and  1908  there  were,  in  round 
numbers,  300  names  on  the  honour  list.  We  had 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  149 

one  first  in  Literae  Humaniores  and  two  in  Mod- 
ern History.  The  two  scholars  from  Quebec  en- 
terins:  in  1904  both  took  firsts  in  Literae  Humani- 
ores.  Of  the  seven  from  Australia  in  1904,  four 
took  firsts  and  two  seconds.  In  outside  honours, 
such  as  prizes,  scholarships,  fellowships,  official 
appointments,  we  have  done  very  little  as  com- 
pared with  the  Colonials.  One  Canadian  gained 
the  Ireland,  the  Craven,  the  Chancellor's  Prize  for 
Latin  Essay,  and  was  made  an  honorary  scholar 
of  Balliol  and  honorary  fellow  at  Exeter.  Two 
Australians  have  taken  the  Vinerian  Law  Schol- 
arships, and  one  of  them  took  also  the  Eldon 
Law  Scholarship,  besides  passing  first  class  in 
the  two  schools  of  Bachelor  of  Civil  Law  and  of 
Jurisprudence  at  Oxford,  and  also  in  the  London 
Bar  examination."  As  a  proper  closing  of  hia 
review  Mr.  Fox  gives  a  suggestive  point  to  the 
argument  by  informing  us  that,  of  the  nine  stu- 
dents on  the  roll  of  honour,  five  came  from  the 
South  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  where  the  sys- 
tem of  education  in  vogue  is  essentially  different 
from  that  which  prevails  in  the  North. 

Oxford  is  regarded  in  all  English-speaking 
communities  as  the  last  refuge  of  the  scholar, 
and  for  his  sake  the  professor  with  his  little 
steam-engine  or  microscope  could  well  be  spared. 


150  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

This  Report  is  a  thing  of  ill-omen.  It  offers  to 
debase  the  currency  in  deference  to  a  factitious 
demand  from  people  who  do  not  understand  what 
they  are  asking,  what  they  want,  or  what  they 
need.  So  soon  as  we  are  convinced  that  "learn- 
ing hath  not  her  own  true  form  nor  can  she  show 
of  her  beauteous  lineament  if  she  fall  into  the 
hands  of  base  and  vile  persons,"  we  are  prepared 
to  assign  to  the  University  its  true  function, 
which  is  to  be  the  comfortable  and  congenial 
abode  of  scholars.  And  what  is  the  business  of 
a  scholar?  Professor  Gilbert  Murray  answered 
the  question  in  his  inaugural  lecture  upon  "  The 
Interpretation  of  Ancient  Greek  Literature," 
at  Oxford,  January  27th,  1909.  The  best  life  of 
Greece,  he  said,  represented  one  of  the  highest 
moments  of  the  past  life  of  humanity,  and  he 
gave  his  answer  in  the  words :  "  The  business  to 
which  the  world  has  set  us  Greek  scholars  is  to 
see  that  it  does  not  die."  They  are  to  act  as  me- 
diators between  the  living  and  the  dead,  since  with 
all  the  permutations  of  science  the  main  web  of 
life  is  permanent.  It  is  the  business  of  the  reli- 
gious teacher,  as  Harnack  said,  to  remind  us  that 
a  man  named  Jesus  once  lived :  it  is  the  business 
of  the  scholar  to  remind  us  that  Plato,  and  Isaiah, 
and  Vergil,  though  now  being  dead,  yet  speak  to 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  151 

us,  and  to  interpret  to  us  what  they  said  in  terms 
which  we  can  comprehend. 

By  all  who  have  beheld  the  beautiful  city,  so 
venerable,  so  lovely,  so  serene,  spreading  her  gar- 
dens to  the  moonlight,  and  felt  her  ineffable  charm, 
and  heard  her  calling  to  the  ideal,  to  perfection, 
to  beauty,  nearer  to  the  true  goal,  perhaps,  than 
all  the  science  of  Manchester  or  the  Massachu- 
setts Institute  of  Technology,  the  Report  will  be 
read  with  that  pain  and  wonder  which  could  be 
expressed  by  no  one  save  Matthew  Arnold,  whose 
words,  it  may  be  necessary  to  remind  the  present 
generation,  I  am  using.  How  different  is  its  con- 
ception of  the  business  of  a  University  from  his 
idea  that  its  purpose  was  for  studying  things  that 
are  outside  of  ourselves  and  studying  them  disin- 
terestedly, for  the  attainment  of  complete  human 
perfection,  for  that  growth  in  the  variety,  fulness, 
and  sweetness  of  life  by  which  the  hard  unintelli- 
gence  of  the  world  shall  be  reduced. 

There  are  different  forms  of  folly.  Each  one 
requires  treatment  according  to  its  kind,  varying 
from  wrath  and  curse  to  the  bitter  jest  or  dry 
scoff.  For  that  amiable  form  which  is  technically 
known  as  professorial,  something  more  mollifying 
is  demanded ;  it  is  so  naive,  so  disinterested,  so 
sincere.  It  is  the  role  of  the  politician  to  play  the 


152  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

courtier  to  King  Demos  with  a  perpetual  "  An 
it  please  your  Majesty  " ;  and  this  obeisance  of 
Oxford  appears  like  a  clumsy  attempt  at  an  imita- 
tion of  that  performance  which  the  politician  by 
sedulous  practice  has  learned  to  do  so  well.  Ox- 
ford will  suffice  to  herself  and  to  the  nation  only 
so  long  as  she  remains  true  to  that  within  herself 
which  has  made  her  what  she  is. 

I  think  the  statement  will  go  uncontradicted 
that  our  schools,  colleges,  and  universities  do  not 
especially  minister  to  those  high  needs  which 
Plato,  and  Aristophanes,  and  Montaigne,  and 
Milton  proclaimed.  Indeed  the  suggestion  that 
they  were  intended  to  do  so  would  be  regarded 
as  comical.  Let  us  take  a  somewhat  lower  view 
and  assume  that  education  has  something  to  do 
with  making  of  a  man  a  good  craftsman,  whether 
he  be  professor  or  carpenter,  by  which  he  can 
earn  his  living,  a  good  father  who  will  perform 
his  duty  towards  his  family,  a  good  citizen  who 
will  perform  his  duty  towards  the  State.  These 
offices  have  been  performed,  and  are  being  per- 
formed, by  men  who  were  educated  by  the  most 
diverse  methods,  and  indeed  by  men  who  have 
never  shared  at  all  in  those  inestimable  advan- 
tages which  are  believed  to  lie  in  schools  and 
books.  Tried  by  this  test,  the  education  through 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION    163 

which  the  professor  has  attained  to  his  high  emi- 
nence has  no  superiority  over  those  methods  which 
yield  stock-brokers  and  clerks.  Indeed  there  are 
incompetent  professors  just  as  there  are  ineffi- 
cient plumbers.  We  have  all  seen  men  learned  in 
that  knowledge  which  makes  them  no  wiser,  "  ever 
learning  and  never  able  to  come  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth."  The  one  is  as  unsuitable  for  his 
environment  as  the  other,  and  in  each  case  the 
method  of  his  education  may  have  been  ill- 
devised.  From  this  the  probability  arises  that 
education  is  not  a  mould  in  which  all  children 
shall  be  thrust. 

It  is  with  extreme  diffidence  that  one  should 
enter  upon  a  discussion  of  the  utility  of  methods 
of  education,  because  any  method  will  be  wrong 
if  applied  to  any  pupil  save  the  one  for  which  it 
is  suited.  One  principle  will  suffice  for  all  boys, 
but  a  method  is  valid  only  for  one  individual.  It 
would  seem  at  first  sight  that  we  might  gain 
valuable  information  by  consulting  with  men 
who  had  succeeded  in  educating  a  large  number 
of  boys.  Following  this  clue,  I  applied  to  a  most 
successful  schoolmaster,  but  the  quest  was  hope- 
less. He  was  not  aware  that  he  had  any  method, 
and  he  refused  to  reflect  upon  the  matter  lest  it 
might  interfere  with  the  spontaneity  of  his  in- 


154  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

stincts.  Under  the  influence  of  the  shock  to  his 
mind  which  was  produced  by  the  information  that 
various  methods  were  actually  being  discussed, 
his  own  principle  was  revealed  to  himself  :  "  To 
lick  a  boy  if  he  lied,  or  pronounced  Oceana  with 
a  wrong  quantity,  or  did  not  attend  to  his  games 
and  military  drill."  By  this  practice,  he  said,  the 
boy  was  taught  the  unity  of  all  evil,  and  conse- 
quently the  unity  of  all  good,  from  which  in  fur- 
ther consequence  he  learned  to  abhor  that  which 
was  evil  and  to  cleave  to  that  which  was  good.  He 
admitted  that  he  had  once  read  a  formal  treatise 
upon  education  in  which  the  subject  had  been 
approached  from  three  sides,  the  moral,  the  in- 
tellectual, the  physical,  and  the  various  aspects 
of  it  examined.  In  this  arrangement  he  thought 
that  there  was  a  defect,  since  it  put  asunder  what 
was  in  reality  one ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  it  is  not  a 
mind,  it  is  not  a  body  that  we  strive  to  erect, 
but  it  is  a  man,  and  we  must  not  make  parts  of 
him." 

For  purposes  of  education  it  is  not  the  method 
but  the  teacher  which  is  required,  and  the  essen- 
tial requisite  for  a  teacher  is  that  he  shall  be  an 
educated  man.  "  In  the  choice  of  a  tutor,"  says 
Montaigne,  "  consisteth  the  whole  substance  of 
the  boy's  education  and  bringing  up,"  and  he 


THE  FALLACY  IN    EDUCATION         165 

would  rather  commend  one  who  had  a  well-com- 
posed and  tempered  brain  than  a  well-stuffed  head. 
When  I  said  that  the  essential  requisite  of  a 
teacher  is  that  he  be  an  educated  man  I  did  not 
mean  woman.  Men  of  character  are  essential  to 
the  formation  of  character  in  boys.  If  a  teacher 
would  influence  his  pupils  with  "  those  mild  and 
effectual  persuasions  with  the  intimation  of  some 
fear,  but  chiefly  by  his  own  example,"  he  must 
be  a  man.  For  imparting  information,  women, 
or  letters,  or  phonographs  will  do.  Modern  edu- 
cation has  arrived  at  its  logical  attainment  in  the 
female  teacher,  the  correspondence  school,  and 
the  machine  which  gives  out  sounds  representing 
certain  facts. 

No  matter  how  adorable  the  feminine  charac- 
ter, it  is  not  precisely  that  which  one  would  hold 
up  for  emulation  by  boys  who  are  afterwards  to 
become  men.  Yet  the  large  proportion  of  public 
schools  are  taught  by  women  who  impress  upon 
their  pupils  the  character  of  women,  and  very 
immature  or  celibate  women  at  that,  whilst  the 
process  of  instruction  is  going  on.  Books  on  edu- 
cation habitually  speak  of  the  teacher  as  "  she," 
as  if  the  sex  were  taken  for  granted. 

To  make  the  absurdity  complete,  boys  and  girls 
are  taught  in  the  same  class ;  and  the  teaching  is 


156  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

identical,  not  on  the  ground  that  it  is  best  for 
either  sex,  but  that  it  is  the  same.  This  method  of 
co-education  neglects  a  fundamental  fact  of  ex- 
istence :  that  there  is  at  least  some  distinction  of 
sex,  and  some  difference  between  individuals  be- 
longing to  each.  Professor  Leacock  very  properly 
insists  upon  this  antithesis  when  he  says :  "  A 
girl  is  by  nature  a  girl,  —  that  is  to  say,  a  gentle, 
timid  creature,  with  an  instinctive  tendency  to 
nurse  a  doll  or  comfort  a  sick  bird,  to  tell  a  fib,  and 
to  believe  a  clergyman  implicitly,  not  by  convic- 
tion of  dogma,  but  on  account  of  the  smoothness 
of  his  broadcloth  and  the  pleasing  rotundity  of 
his  features.  A  boy  is  a  rough,  brutal  animal,  with 
an  instinct  for  breaking  glass,  killing  animals, 
avoiding  the  clergy,  and  regarding  grown-up 
people  as  liars."  Girls  have  a  certain  quickness 
of  apprehension  which  is  of  inestimable  value  in 
the  passing  of  examinations  ;  and  boys,  seeing 
the  immediate  advantage  of  that  quality,  endeav- 
our to  mould  their  minds  after  the  feminine  type. 
Self-reliance,  perseverance  to  the  point  of  dogged- 
ness,  a  contempt  of  mere  smartness,  and  content- 
ment with  stupidity  even,  all  give  place  to  the 
desire  for  rapid  impressions  and  instant  results. 
Communities  abandoned  to  the  public  school  and 
the  female  teacher  quickly  lose  that  character 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  157 

wbich,  for  good  or  bad,  is  well  described  as  manly. 
A  woman  gets  what  she  wants  in  her  own  pretty 
way  or  by  crying  for  it :  a  boy  soon  persuades 
himself  that  this  ready  method  is  efficacious  for 
him  also. 

I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the  education  of 
women,  having  no  immediate  desire  to  involve 
myself  in  fresh  controversy  ;  but  I  cannot  refrain 
from  endorsing  that  commendation  which  Roger 
Ascham  offered  to  the  Marquis  and  Marchioness 
of  Dorset,  who  had  "  brought  up  their  daughter 
strictly,  requiring  that  she  should  speak,  be  silent, 
dance,  walk,  and  with  as  much  decorum  and  per- 
fection as  God  made  the  world."  I  shall  set  over 
against  this  —  without  comment,  and  I  trust  that 
this  reticence  will  be  accounted  to  me  — the  judge- 
ment which  Miss  Elizabeth  Wordsworth  delivers 
upon  the  same  subject  in  the  "  Church  Quarterly 
Review  " :  "  We  need  not  only '  good'  women, but 
women  whose  religion  rests  upon  a  secure,  intel- 
ligible foundation,  and  who  are  abreast  of  the 
theological  science  of  the  day." 

We  are  prone  to  overestimate  the  evil  which 
education  can  work  in  a  boy's  nature.  He  is  not 
affected  much  by  things  which  have  no  interest 
for  him,  though  he  may  be  injured  by  the  stimu- 
lation of  some  particular  faculty  which  is  already 


158  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

over-sensitive.  If  he  is  easily  enamoured  of  the 
relation  of  functions  or  of  pieces  on  a  chequered 
board,  he  may  unwittingly  develop  into  a  mathe- 
matician or  a  chess-player.  But  with  a  girl  it  is 
otherwise  and  the  danger  imminent.  Her  mind 
can  be  saturated  with  anything  and  everything. 
Consequently  she  is  liable  to  suppress  her  char- 
acteristic self  without  acquiring  a  new  and  stable 
personality. 

So  long  as  education  had  the  high  aim  of 
enlightening  the  mind,  subduing  the  will,  and 
giving  to  the  material  at  hand  the  best  possible 
character,  it  was  inevitable  that  some  account 
should  be  made  of  those  elements  in  the  nature 
which  have  to  do  with  religion.  Until  our  own 
day  education  and  religion  were  invariably  asso- 
ciated, and  we  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  expound- 
ing away  the  force  of  that  important  direction, 
"  The  fear  of  God  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,"  — 
if  one  may  mention  that  holy  name  in  the  hearing 
of  teachers  who  are  of  the  scientific  sect.  Let  us 
make  the  utmost  concession  to  the  susceptibili- 
ties of  those  who  believe  that  schools  are  only 
" national  "  when  they  ai'e  "non-religious,"  and 
substitute  any  other  term  which  they  may  choose. 
The  case  is  no  different.  Education  divorced  from 
religion  ends  in  lawlessness,  defiance  of  authority, 


THE   FALLACY   IN   EDUCATION  159 

and  ill-manners  in  every  relation  of  life.  It  is  the 
negation  of  all  discipline. 

Of  course  I  am  not  speaking  with  praise  of 
those  schools  in  which  a  system  of  traditional 
theology  and  organized  ecclesiasticism  is  mis- 
taken for  religion;  nor  of  those  in  which  it  is 
considered  that  the  ability  to  repeat  the  Lord's 
Prayer  in  Latin  and  draw  a  map  of  Palestine 
is  the  mark  of  a  religious  mind.  There  is  this, 
however,  to  be  said  of  schools  of  a  professedly 
religious  character :  as  a  rule  they  are  taught  by 
men  who,  whether  or  not  they  are  good  men 
and  men  of  character,  are  at  least  in  the  form  of 
men  and  possess  the  authority  which  comes  from 
strength  and  not  from  weakness. 

At  the  time  of  the  Episcopalian  dissent  from 
the  Old  Church,  the  traditional  association  of  re- 
ligion and  education  remained.  After  the  more 
thorough  Presbyterian  dissent  from  the  same 
Church,  some  rudiments  of  the  principle  were  car- 
ried over  and  showed  themselves  in  the  high  place 
which  was  given  to  that  compendium  of  spiritual 
experience  known  as  the  Catechism,  commonly 
called  the  "  shorter,"  comparatively,  that  is,  to 
distinguish  it  from  a  more  elaborate  expression 
of  doctrine  which  was  believed  to  exist.  In  time 
the  discovery  was  made  that  the  value  of  this  in- 


160  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

strument  was  intellectual  rather  than  religious ; 
and  a  boy  who  was  whipped  for  his  ignorance  of 
the  benefits  which  in  this  life  do  accompany  or 
flow  from  justification,  adoption,  and  sanctifi- 
cation  could  not  well  be  blamed  if  he  failed  to 
appreciate  the  benefits  which  an  apprehension  of 
these  doctrines  might  ensure  to  him  at  his  death, 
at  his  resurrection,  or  in  the  life  to  come.  It  has 
always  appeared  to  me  significant  of  this  domina- 
tion of  the  intellectual  over  the  spiritual  that  the 
table  of  the  multiplication  of  numbers  was  inva- 
riably printed  upon  the  little  book  as  a  seal  of  its 
authority,  the  obvious  truthfulness  of  "  twice  two 
make  four  "  being  imputed  unconsciously  to  all 
which  was  contained  within  the  covers. 

This  superstitious  reverence  of  education  is  a 
survival  from  an  earlier  stage  of  civilization,  when 
men  believed  that  persons  who  had  the  ability  to 
read  and  write  could  in  some  way  influence  the 
condition  of  the  future  existence  of  their  less 
instructed  fellow-men,  and  it  was  inconceivable 
that  persons  so  learned  should  experience  any 
difficulty  in  making  satisfactory  arrangements  for 
themselves.  In  this  present  life,  also,  they  were 
entitled  to  certain  benefits,  that  of  clergy,  for 
example,  by  which  one  who  had  been  convicted 
in  a  secular  court  could  claim  a  hearing  before 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION         161 

the  ecclesiastical  authorities  on  his  own  declara- 
tion of  innocence  in  arrest  of  judgement.  Long 
after  the  description  of  the  exact  nature  of  hell 
was  assumed  to  be  allegorical,  some  traces  of  this 
idolatrous  worship  of  education  remained;  and 
illiterate  persons  yet  regard  with  a  certain  adora- 
tion those  who  have  skill  in  the  use  of  letters. 

Probably  the  statement  will  go  uncontradicted 
that  a  boy  is  sent  to  school  in  order  that  some- 
thing may  be  done  with  his  mind,  as  a  girl  would 
go  to  a  school  for  singing,  that  something  may  be 
done  with  her  voice.  Yet  it  is  a  curious  anomaly 
that  all  boys  are  sent  to  school  upon  the  assump- 
tion that  they  have  minds  which  can  be  equally 
trained,  whilst  the  girl  must  show  some  evidence 
that  she  has  a  voice  which  will  profit  by  the  la- 
bour which  it  is  proposed  to  bestow  upon  it. 

It  is  not  equally  easy  to  measure  the  results 
in  each  case,  and  it  is  somewhat  excusable  that 
the  mind  should  receive  a  vicious  training  when 
we  reflect  that  this  confusion  of  knowledge 
with  education  has  penetrated  into  every  branch 
of  art.  The  best  painter  is  he  who  discourses 
most  learnedly  about  the  cuisine  of  his  art.  The 
best  singer  is  one  most  learned  in  the  anatomy 
of  the  mechanism  by  which  voice  is  produced, 
like: 


162  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

"  The  young  lady  from  Brussels, 

When  they  asked,  'Can  you  sing?* 
She  said,  '  My  !  What  a  thing ! 
But  I  can  tell  a  whole  lot  about  muscles.' " 

All  teaching  —  even  the  teaching  of  art  —  is 
tinctured  with  the  fallacy  that  it  must  be  scien- 
tific. The  case  of  music  will  serve  for  purposes  of 
illustration.  In  a  recent  book  upon  the  subject  it 
is  asserted  that  "  modern  methods  contain  not  one 
single  topic  of  any  value  whatever  in  the  training 
of  the  voice."  As  an  acute  reviewer  has  observed, 
this  is  the  language  of  a  charlatan,  or  of  one  who 
believes  that  all  are  charlatans  save  himself ;  and 
yet  it  is  worth  examining  the  ground  of  the  asser- 
tion. Italy  was  the  cradle  of  music,  and  even  if 
we  accept  the  comment  of  Hans  von  Biilow  as 
true,  that  it  remained  the  cradle,  inasmuch  as  the 
overture,  the  symphony,  the  opera,  and  the  ora- 
torio, which  originated  there,  came  to  their  full 
development  only  in  other  countries,  we  are  yet 
obliged  to  admit  that  in  the  creation  of  singers 
Italy  has  never  been  surpassed.  These  old  mas- 
ters had  no  method  whatever.  They  had  certain 
precepts  which  they  regarded  as  essential :  sing- 
ing on  the  breath,  opening  the  throat,  singing  the 
tune  at  the  lips,  and  supporting  the  tone.  These 
things  they  learned   by  experience.  "  Listen  to 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  163 

me,  and  do  as  I  do,"  was  their  maxim.  The  old 
Italian  master,  Pier  Tosi,  declared  that  the  only 
way  to  learn  to  sing  was  to  listen  to  singers,  and 
that  was  better  than  any  insti-uction  whatsoever. 
Of  a  somewhat  similar  tenor  is  the  advice  of  my 
colleague,  Wesley  Mills,  that  pupils  should  hear 
the  best  singers,  note  the  quality  of  their  tones, 
and  imitate  those  qualities  with  their  own  voices. 
Accordingly  imitation  is  the  rational  method  of 
learning  to  sing. 

But  in  1855  Manuel  Garcia  invented  the 
laryngoscope,  and  forthwith  the  teaching  of  sing- 
ing became  scientific.  Pupils  were  taught  anatomy, 
acoustics,  and  mechanics  instead  of  being  shown 
how  to  sing.  Not  only  is  such  teaching  useless,  it 
is  fatal  to  the  production  of  music,  since  it  at- 
tempts to  do  consciously  what  can  be  done  only 
unconsciously.  Throat  stiffness  is  the  result,  and 
that  is  what  all  teaching  aims  to  overcome.  The 
only  way  to  learn  to  do  a  thing  is  to  do  it.  Gar- 
cia was  the  first  of  the  scientific  teachers  of  sing- 
ing, and  yet  he  was  never  done  protesting  that  he 
was  not  a  surgeon,  but  a  singer ;  Charles  Santley, 
"  the  exponent  of  all  that  is  virile  and  sincere 
in  the  art  of  song,"  quoting  the  dictum  of  an  old 
master,  declared  that  it  was  better  for  his  pupils 
that   they   should  not  be  aware  that   they  had 


164  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

throats,  except  for  the  purpose  of  swallowing 
their  food.  There  is  in  this  a  sound  principle  of 
physiology.  Even  the  swallowing  of  food  may  be- 
come difficult  when  attention  is  centred  upon  the 
process ;  an  act  which  is  automatic  is  inhibited. 
The  training  of  the  ear  is  one  half  the  training 
of  the  voice ;  the  training  of  the  boy  is  the 
whole  of  education.  In  both  cases  it  must  be  done 
unconsciously. 

A  problem  which  is  difficult  may  sometimes  be 
solved  by  reducing  it  to  simpler  terms.  Many  of 
the  habits  of  men  may  be  explained  by  an  exami- 
nation of  the  conduct  of  the  lower  animals.  For 
example,  the  practice  of  shaking  hands  is  really 
an  investigation  by  means  of  the  sense  of  touch 
instead  of  by  the  sense  of  smell,  which  was  devel- 
oped after  the  wearing  of  clothes  had  rendered 
the  earlier  method  difficult  or  impossible  ;  and  the 
utility  of  clothing  was  discovered  as  a  result  of 
its  employment  for  purposes  of  adornment.  In 
the  female  this  decorative  motive  still  persists,  as 
Mr.  Spencer  has  observed ;  and  he  reminds  us 
specifically  that  "the  elaborate  dressings  of  the 
hair,  the  still  occasional  use  of  paint,  the  immense 
labour  bestowed  in  making  habiliments  suffi- 
ciently attractive,  and  the  great  discomfort  that 
will  be  submitted  to  for  the  sake  of  conformity, 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  165 

show  how  greatly,  in  the  attiring  of  women,  the 
desire  of  approbation  overrides  the  desire  for 
warmth  and  convenience." 

But  in  the  attempt  to  discover  the  true  princi- 
ples of  education  by  the  comparative  or  anthropo- 
logical method  we  must  guard  against  the  danger 
which  lurks  in  all  analogy.  This  method  as- 
sumes an  orderly  development  from  the  lowest  of 
created  beings  to  the  highest,  and  takes  no  notice 
of  the  possibility  that  humanity  may  be  what  the 
biologists  designate  as  a  sport,  that  is,  a  result  of 
a  sudden  and  spontaneous  variation  from  the  nor- 
mal type.  Upon  this  fundamental  question  there 
are  two  opinions  which  are  exactly  contrary, 
and  both  cannot  be  right.  From  the  beginning 
of  created  beings  there  has  certainly  been  some 
change  in  the  status  and  nature  of  man ;  but 
whether  for  better  or  worse,  the  authorities  are 
not  in  agreement.  Sir  W.  M.  Ramsay  and  St. 
Paul,  many  of  whose  comments  upon  natural  phe- 
nomena were  based  upon  observation  which  must 
have  been  less  exact  than  it  would  be  to-day, 
thought  it  was  for  the  worse.  Professor  Mac- 
Bride,  after  a  survey  of  the  creation  covering  a 
period  of  300,000  years,  thinks  it  is  for  the  bet- 
ter. Until  this  matter  is  cleared  up  by  the  profes- 
sional divines,  we  cannot  infer  from  the  effect  of 


166  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

education  upon  a  monkey  or  a  seal  what  it  would 
be  upon  a  boy. 

And  yet  there  is  something  suggestive  in  ob- 
serving the  conduct  of  a  seal  which  is  taught  to 
beat  a  drum,  or  of  a  monkey  which  is  taught  to  sew 
pieces  of  cloth  together.  There  are  two  tests  of 
the  utility  of  that  process  by  which  these  animals 
are  educated  to  undertake  these  performances,  the 
effect  upon  their  own  character,  and  the  benefit 
to  the  world  at  large.  These  are  also  the  tests 
which  must  finally  be  applied  for  determining  the 
value  of  the  education  of  boys.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  the  capacity  to  beat  a  drum  would  be  of  any 
immediate  advantage  to  the  seal  if  he  were  cast 
back  into  his  native  waters.  On  the  contrary,  his 
experience  of  the  public  stage,  public  favour,  and 
applause  would  probably  make  his  old  surround- 
ings distasteful.  The  apprehension  felt  by  the 
framers  of  the  report  upon  University  education 
for  working-people  to  which  I  have  referred  would 
probably  be  justified  in  the  case  under  considera- 
tion. Their  ominous  words  are :  "  We  cannot  con- 
ceal from  ourselves  that  there  are  certain  dangers 
on  account  of  the  possible  risk  that  the  working- 
classes  might  be  carried  off  their  feet  by  the  social 
life  of  Oxford  and  forget  their  own  people." 

It  is  imaginable  that  after  generations  of  edu- 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  167 

cation  the  animal  might  utilize  his  ability  to  beat 
a  drum  to  attract  fishes  to  his  maw,  to  obtain  an 
easier  sustenance,  to  increase  his  social  status,  to 
win  the  admiration  and  respect  of  his  fellows,  to 
overcome  by  his  superior  attainments  the  stolid- 
ity, perseverance,  and  doggedness  of  one  rival,  the 
cunning  of  another.  Although  we  have  now  come 
close  to  the  borders  of  folly,  we  have  arrived  at 
an  explanation  of  the  universal  practice  of  send- 
ing a  boy  to  school,  namely  that  he  shall  be  ele- 
vated from  the  working-class  into  the  exploiting- 
class.  The  native  East  Indian  is  the  great  expo- 
nent of  this  principle.  He  says  quite  frankly  that 
his  object  in  going  to  school  is  to  rid  himself  of 
the  necessity  of  toiling  with  his  hands.  The  rem- 
edy which  is  proposed  by  persons  who  never  have 
done  a  full  day's  work  with  their  hands  is  to  in- 
culcate the  dignity  of  labour.  The  cure  for  that 
form  of  cant  is  five  hours'  work  at  some  uncon- 
genial task,  a  coarse  bite  in  the  shelter  of  a  hedge 
or  factory,  and  then  five  hours  more,  with  the 
prospect  of  receiving  thirty  shillings  or  its  equi- 
valent at  the  end  of  a  week,  and  public  charity  at 
the  end  of  a  life  of  such  labour.  Handiwork  has 
always  been  regarded  as  identical  with,  or  but 
little  removed  from,  slavery.  In  olden  times  men 
avoided  it  by  entering  the  ranks  of  the  clerics  or 


168  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

going  to  the  wars.  Now  they  strive  to  emancipate 
their  boys  by  sending  them  to  school,  resolute 
that  they  shall  not  continue  to  endure  the  yoke 
and  the  additional  responsibility  of  free  men  to 
support  themselves  when  they  can  work  no  longer. 
It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  workman  sends 
his  boy  to  school  as  the  first  step  towards  compel- 
ling others  to  toil  for  his  support. 

Or  we  might  arrive  at  the  principles  of  edu- 
cation by  a  historical  enquiry  into  the  methods 
which  were  employed  in  a  simpler  society  than 
our  own  ;  and  that  is  a  labour  to  which  professors 
of  education  might  well  apply  themselves.  The 
school  is  a  late  product  of  civilization  and  a  sign 
of  the  complexity  of  life.  In  the  outset  the  child 
was  educated  in  the  home  and  instructed  in  all 
those  principles  which  would  serve  to  make  a  man 
of  him.  The  Indians  of  North  America  retained 
this  system  of  education  down  to  modern  times, 
and  so  efficient  was  it  that  it  enabled  a  band  of 
warriors,  so  trained  and  numbering  not  three 
thousand,  to  dominate  a  continent.  They  were 
men  of  character,  though  it  must  seem  merely 
an  echo  from  a  teachers'  convention,  that  educa- 
tion consists  in  the  formation  of  that.  Until  our 
own  day  schools  were  employed  merely  as  useful 
adjuncts  to  the  home,  where  perfection  might  be 


THE   FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  169 

attained  in  the  lesson  of  obedience.  In  time,  advan- 
tage was  taken  of  those  years  of  leisure  to  give  to 
boys  some  information  which  was  of  interest  and 
might  possibly  be  useful  at  some  future  time. 
Eventually  the  good  word  "schooling"  was  wrested 
from  its  original  meaning  and  came  to  signify  a 
process  of  receiving  instruction.  Knowledge  and 
knowing  was  expected  to  accomplish  everything, 
and  it  was  entirely  forgotten  that  learning  must 
be  assimilated  and  made  part  of  life.  The  boy 
was  to  be  made  into  a  kind  of  reasoning-machine 
somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  that  new  device 
which  one  may  see  in  a  butcher's  shop,  which 
will  weigh  your  meat  and  calculate  the  price  at 
the  same  time.  It  was  shrewdly  observed  that 
this  process  was  useful  in  equipping  a  boy  for 
getting  on  in  the  world,  and  the  product  of  these 
schools  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer. 

Henceforth  instruction  was  the  thing.  Know- 
ledge came  to  be  regarded  as  the  ideal  of  attain- 
ment, and  education  was  forced  into  its  shy  re- 
treat. The  best  example  which  I  can  offer  of  what 
this  system,  when  pushed  to  a  conclusion,  will  do 
for  a  boy's  nature,  is  the  case  of  John  Stuart 
Mill.  This  grandson  of  a  Scotch  shoemaker  was 
brought  up  after  the  most  straitest  sect  of  the 
doctrine  of  instruction.    By  the  twelfth  year  of 


170  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

his  age  he  had  acquired  a  volume  of  learning  which 
requires  many  pages  of  his  autobiography  to  de- 
scribe. He  had  read  with  a  high  degree  of  thor- 
oughness, according  to  his  own  account,  nearly  all 
the  Greek  and  Latin  writings  which  are  extant, 
and  obtained  some  mastery  over  the  subtilties  of 
algebra,  the  calculus,  and  other  portions  of  the 
higher  mathematics.  His  mind  was  fashioned  into 
a  reasoning-machine  so  complete  in  its  operation 
that  even  his  father  was  satisfied  with  the  results 
of  his  handiwork.  And  yet  it  was  the  impression 
of  various  persons  that  they  found  him  "greatly 
and  disagreeably  conceited."  Notwithstanding 
these  attainments,  in  his  twentieth  year  he  was 
"  left  stranded  at  the  commencement  of  his  voyage 
with  a  well-equipped  ship  but  no  sail."  The  foun- 
tains of  benevolence  seemed  completely  dried  up, 
and  he  passed  "  a  melancholy  winter  of  heavy  de- 
jection." The  spirit  had  gone  out  of  his  mental 
exercises ;  his  real  education  began  only  when  he 
came  under  the  ministration  of  a  human  being. 

All  those  useful  arts  of  life,  which  in  olden 
times  were  acquired  unconsciously  in  the  home, 
are  now  taught  in  the  school  in  a  clumsy  way, — 
the  correct  employment  of  the  visiting-card,  the 
limits  within  which  the  invitation  may  be  issued, 
the  relation  which  should  exist  between  the  chap- 
erone,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  debutante  and  the 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  171 

youth,  on  the  other,  the  advance  without  shyness, 
and  retreat  without  appearance  of  humiliation. 
The  real  virtues  which  might  be  developed  in  the 
home  are  lost  under  this  thin  veneer  which  is  fur- 
nished by  the  schools. 

Ill 
So  here  we  are,  the  high  aim  of  education  aban- 
doned, the  Universities  of  America  frankly  teach- 
ing trades,  the  Universities  of  England  casting 
away  their  tradition  of  learning,  its  preservation 
and  advancement,  and  yet  too  timid  to  accept  the 
American  ideal  in  its  entirety.  The  consensus  in 
England  and  in  the  United  States  now  is  that  we 
must  have  a  new  education,  and  that  it  is  in  Ger- 
many we  shall  find  it.  In  England  there  shall  be 
less  classics,  in  the  United  States  more  science. 
The  Germans  are  not  afraid  of  conclusions  which 
are  the  result  of  a  logical  process.  We  in  our  phi- 
losophy, education,  and  politics  always  stop  short 
of  the  inevitable  end.  Accordingly  we  propose  for 
ourselves  a  system  which  shall  include  a  little 
classics,  a  little  science,  and  a  little  technical 
training,  educating  the  boy  by  books  and  teach- 
ing him  a  trade  at  the  same  time.  We  have  been 
trying  with  rather  inconclusive  results  to  train 
the  mind  which  no  man  has  seen :  let  us  now  deal 
with  the  body  which  we  can  see. 


172  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

The  German  method  has  produced  remarkable 
results,  but  that  does  not  prove  that  it  would  be 
equally  well  adapted  to  our  needs,  even  if  it  were 
possible  to  adopt  it  in  its  entirety.  We  should 
as  well  expect  that  we  could  successfully  engraft 
upon  our  individualistic  and  lawless  natures  a 
system  of  rigid  militarism.  And  yet,  looking  deeper, 
we  may  discover  that  forty  years  ago  it  was  to 
Germany  we  went  in  search  of  a  love  for  the  ideal 
and  a  reverence  of  fact,  for  a  high,  and  austere, 
and  disinterested  view  of  life.  To  inculcate  the 
value  of  these  things  was  Germany's  work  in  the 
world,  wrought  out  by  her  unworldly  professors, 
her  authors  dazzling  with  the  brilliancy  of  their 
ideas,  her  scientists  consumed  with  the  pure  love 
of  knowledge,  and  her  philosophers  whose  thought 
ranged  over  the  whole  of  human  life  and  aspired 
upward  to  a  knowledge  of  God.  Shorn  of  her 
spiritual  strength,  Germany  sits  to-day,  a  blind 
giant,  toiling  in  the  mill  for  the  benefit  of  any 
Philistine  who  requires  meanness  and  cheapness. 
Forty  years  of  commercial  education  has  wrought 
this  change  in  character,  and  made  of  the  Ger- 
mans the  tinkers  of  Europe,  the  bagmen  of  the 
world,  the  supple  traders  who  do  not  disdain  the 
language  of  the  Hottentot,  if  only  a  bill  of  goods 
may  be  sold  thereby.    To-day,  German  science 


THE  FALLACY  IN    EDUCATION  173 

and  learning  have  surrendered  themselves  to  the 
vindication  of  brute  force  over  moral  ideals. 

So  soon  as  the  discovery  was  made  that  the 
minds  of  boys  were  not  much  improved  by  the 
process  known  as  education,  attention  was  turned 
to  their  bodies,  and  various  systems  of  physical 
exercise  were  introduced.  At  first  these  exercises 
were  done  in  a  hard,  mechanical  way,  and  suc- 
ceeded only  in  producing  an  abnormal  muscula- 
ture without  educating  the  system  to  a  coordina- 
tion and  control  of  the  various  groups  of  muscles 
for  the  performance  of  useful  acts.  The  owners 
developed  into  the  type  of  the  professional  ath- 
lete in  whom  hypertrophy  was  gained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  elasticity,  competent  to  perform  certain 
muscular  feats  whereby  the  system  became  still 
more  rigid  and  incapable  of  acquiring  new  habits. 
Even  to-day  in  the  American  schools  it  is  com- 
mon to  see  pupils  with  the  bodies  of  men  and  the 
minds  of  boys  as  a  result  of  persistent  exercises 
which  are  divorced  from  utility.  This  cult  of 
the  body  is  not  new  either.  The  Greeks  educated 
the  body ;  but  their  object  was  the  attainment 
of  the  perfection  of  beauty  and  a  heightened  per- 
ception of  it.  Our  object  appears  to  be  to  produce 
athletes  for  the  adornment  of  the  drawing-room. 

The  Germans  have  made  the  simple  discovery 


174  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

that  a  boy  who  is  destined  to  become  a  barber 
requires  a  different  training  from  that  which  is 
suitable  for  a  boy  who  is  to  become  a  physician. 
But  we  are  not  so  brutal  as  that.  The  American 
theory  in  the  past  has  been  that  all  boys  shall 
be  given  an  equal  opportunity  by  handicapping 
them  equally  with  the  loss  of  eight  years  spent 
in  school,  learning  something  useful,  which  in  the 
end  has  turned  out  to  be  useless  for  any  purpose 
whatever.  The  futility  of  the  old  method  has  been 
so  clearly  apprehended  that  there  is  now  a  strong 
resolution  to  modify  or  replace  it  by  a  technical 
training.  In  this  new  education  also  lurks  the 
fallacy  of  utilitarianism  and  the  paradox  that  he 
who  seeks  shall  not  find. 

If  we  could  see  steadily  that  all  education  is 
one,  though  there  be  many  roads  to  it,  we  should 
find  a  way  out.  But  if  of  technical  education  we 
erect  a  system  obviously  and  nakedly  designed  to 
make  of  a  boy  a  more  subservient  tool,  a  less  re- 
luctant part  of  the  machine  which  we  have  cre- 
ated for  ourselves,  the  last  state  will  be  worse  than 
the  first.  If  our  direct  aim  is  not  to  make  the 
individual  more  sensitive,  more  beautiful  even, 
but  consciously  to  attempt  to  make  him  more  efiB- 
cient,  better  qualified  for  his  job,  we  shaU  end 
by  treating  him  as  if  he  were  a  jack-plane  or  a 


THE  FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  175 

chisel.  I£  he  is  elected  to  turn  a  screw-driver 
for  the  remainder  of  his  days,  only  the  sujnnator 
longus  muscle  shall  be  developed :  all  else  would 
be  an  obvious  waste  of  time.  Possibly  it  would 
be  an  advantage  that  a  man  who  operates  only 
one  machine  in  a  shop  shall  be  taught  to  operate 
a  machine  of  a  different  kind;  so  that,  when  he 
is  out  of  work  in  one  department  he  may  have 
resort  to  another,  or  when  a  strike  occurs  the 
employer  shall  have  a  diversity  of  gifts  at  his 
disposal. 

This  low  view  is  a  very  common  one,  which 
looks  to  increased  efficiency  as  part  of  a  ma- 
chine without  any  reference  to  the  education  of 
the  man;  and  this  is  the  fallacy  which  lurks  at 
the  root  of  that  technical  education  in  which  all 
English-speaking  people  now  believe  that  safety 
lies.  Therefore  our  boys  shall  have  in  addition 
to  their  books  a  few  weeks'  course  in  plumbing, 
in  plastering,  in  carpentry,  who  have  never  held 
a  tool  in  their  hands,  and  they  are  to  work  in  a 
disdainful,  dilettante  way,  as  if  they  are  not  in 
reality  plumbers,  plasterers,  and  carpenters,  but 
shall  cast  off  the  character  which  they  are  assum- 
ing when  they  shed  their  overalls  and  put  on 
their  white  shirts. 

Upon  the  value  of  this  kind  of  technical  edu- 


176  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

cation  we  may  gain  some  opinion  if  we  revert  to 
the  image  of  the  seal.  If  we  were  to  put  him  in 
an  aquarium  and  teach  him  to  secure  his  food,  we 
should  have  an  analogue  of  the  boy  in  a  techni- 
cal school.  There  are  no  observations,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware,  upon  the  results  of  the  method ;  but 
possibly  the  professor  would  be  wasting  his  own 
time  and  the  time  of  the  seal,  probably  doing 
him  an  injury  by  creating  the  impression  in  his 
mind  that  the  agility  he  was  acquiring  in  leaping 
for  dead  fish  would  be  of  equal  value  when  he 
was  obliged  to  find  food  for  himself.  The  way  to 
learn  to  do  a  thing  is  to  do  it,  and  that  is  as  true 
for  boys  as  it  is  for  singers  and  for  seals. 

Whatever  the  State  does,  it  does  badly.  Its  pro- 
pagation of  religion  ended  in  failure.  Its  attempt 
at  education  has  not  succeeded,  and  all  persons 
must  be  in  agreement  that  the  system  which  is 
now  in  vogue  has  had  a  fair  test.  In  England 
and  Wales,  during  the  year  1907,  only  one-and-a- 
half  per  cent  of  men  and  women  who  married  were 
incapable  of  signing  the  register.  In  1840  the 
percentage  was  33  for  men  and  50  for  women. 
The  fabric  which  we  have  erected  is  so  vast,  and 
its  failure  woidd  be  so  appalling,  we  refuse  to 
admit  that  there  are  signs  of  decay  and  that  it  must 
come  to  the  ground.  The  remedy  for  this  form  of 


THE  FALLACY   IN    EDUCATION  177 

foolishness  is  that  we  should  look  at  the  facts. 
Men  who  are  concerned  about  keeping  the  busi- 
ness of  the  world  moving  are  aware  of  them,  and 
by  actual  experience  of  life  they  have  arrived  at 
the  same  conclusion  as  Montaigne  when  he  de- 
clared :  "  Those  which  according  to  one  common 
fashion  undertake  with  one  self -same  lesson  and 
like  manner  of  education  to  direct  many  spirits 
of  diverse  forms  and  different  humours,  it  is  no 
marvel  if  among  a  multitude  of  children  they 
scarce  meet  with  two  or  three  that  reap  any  good 
fruit  by  their  discipline  or  that  come  to  any  per- 
fection." 

The  machinery  of  society  has  outgrown  the 
capacity  to  manage  it.  Those  in  control  are  calmly 
ignoring  all  that  has  been  done  by  the  State,  and 
are  now  engaged  in  organizing  a  system  of  edu- 
cation of  their  own.  Of  this  I  shall  offer  one 
illustration. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  American  Railway  Master 
Mechanics' Association  held  in  1907,  education  was 
the  principal  subject  of  discussion.  This  Associa- 
tion is  composed  of  1,000  members  representing 
all  the  railways  in  America.  They  have  in  their 
immediate  employ  400,000  men.  They  have  charge 
of  the  design,  construction,  and  repair  of  all  the 
railway  rolling-stock  in  America.  Their  philoso- 


178  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

phy  of  education  in  the  abstract  may  not  be  as 
illuminating  as  Plato's;  but  their  opinion  upon 
the  kind  of  training  which  will  make  boys  adapted 
to  their  environment  must  have  a  very  high  value. 
The  short  of  the  matter  is  that  they  have  estab- 
lished schools  of  their  own  in  their  own  works, 
where  boys  are  taught  reading,  writing,  and  arith- 
metic as  preliminary  to  a  special  training  in  the 
designing,  making,  and  working  of  machines. 

In  commenting  upon  this  system.  Professor 
Hibbard  of  Cornell,  himself  "  engaged  in  the  pro- 
fessional business  of  education,"  said,  "  The  bare 
fact  of  the  establishment  of  this  course  is  a  severe 
arraignment  of  public  school  education."  The 
New  York  Central  Lines  was  the  first  to  initiate 
the  movement  in  1900,  under  the  suggestion  of 
Mr.  J.  F.  Deems,  and  the  management  of  Mr 
C.  W.  Cross  and  Mr.  W.  B.  Russel.  Since  that 
time  it  has  extended  to  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Railway  under  Mr.  H.  H.  Vaughan,  to  the  Santa 
F^,  the  Union  Pacific,  the  Southern  Pacific,  the 
Central  of  New  Jersey,  the  Delaware  and  Hudson, 
and  the  Michigan  Central ;  and,  as  Mr.  Cross  af- 
firmed, the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  each  railroad 
will  have  a  system  of  its  own.  One  of  the  members 
made  the  acute  observation  that  the  only  other  place 
where  an  efficient  system  of  education  was  in  vogue 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  179 

was  in  the  State  Reformatory  for  boys  who  had 
been  fortunate  enough  to  commit  a  crime  against 
the  laws  of  the  people.  At  the  Convention  of 
1908,  a  committee  reported  that  this  new  system 
was  the  most  important  influence  introduced  into 
railroad  organization  during  the  present  genera- 
tion. This  is  the  exact  antithesis  of  technical 
training.  The  schools  are  brought  into  the  shops 
by  private  enterprise  instead  of  the  shops  being 
brought  into  the  schools  by  public  subsidy.  The 
practical  and  theoretical  are  so  thoroughly  united 
that  "  the  grease  of  the  shop  is  literally  rubbed 
into  the  lesson  sheets." 

In  quite  this  fashion  were  those  craftsmen  edu- 
cated who  built  the  pyramids,  the  Parthenon,  and 
the  cathedrals  of  Europe ;  and  we  must  admit 
that  the  results  were  fairly  satisfactory,  especially 
when  we  reflect  upon  our  own  achievements  in 
the  building  line  during  the  past  five  hundred 
years.  All  work  is  one,  and  there  is  no  essential 
distinction  between  work  and  play.  A  profes- 
sional golf  player  is  believed  to  have  joy  in  his 
work,  and  yet  his  occupation  is  no  different  from 
that  of  the  man  who  has  been  trained  from  his 
youth  upward  to  stand  upon  the  steel  framework 
of  a  bridge  and  place  with  swiftness,  accuracy, 
and   force  successive   blows   of  a   long^-handled 


180  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

hammer  upon  the  head  of  a  red-hot  rivet.  One 
of  the  best  amateur  golf-players  I  ever  knew  was 
so  trained,  and  he  informed  me  that  both  occupa- 
tions gave  him  the  same  delight. 

A  boy  who  is  to  practise  a  craft  cannot  begin 
too  soon,  if  he  is  to  make  it  a  part  of  himself.  He 
must  begin  early,  when  his  muscular  sense  is 
easily  impressed,  and  qualify  himself  not  for  any 
one  work,  but  for  all  work.  Then  he  will  perform 
all  tasks  with  joy.  Those  precious  years  of  youth 
our  boys  spend  in  schools  with  books,  striving  to 
develop  a  mind  which  is  not  there  to  develop,  and 
allowing  a  body  to  lie  idle  until  it  has  become  too 
fixed  to  acquire  a  habit  as  part  of  itself.  Our 
workmen  are  as  inefficient  as  they  are  because 
they  have  never  learned  a  trade,  never  impressed 
it  upon  their  muscular  sense,  never  made  it  a 
part  of  themselves.  They  are  amateurs,  and  will 
never  be  anything  else,  no  matter  how  long  they 
may  continue  to  exercise  their  calling. 

Those  schools  for  young  children,  in  which  in- 
structive diversions,  object-lessons,  and  healthful 
games  are  prominent  features,  have  their  use  as 
a  protest  if  not  as  a  fulfilment.  Froebel  was  right 
in  his  attempt  to  give  to  children  employment 
suited  to  their  years  and  nature,  to  strengthen 
their  bodies,  exercise   their  senses,  employ  the 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  181 

waking  mind,  make  them  acquainted  with  nature, 
cultivate  especially  the  heart  and  temper,  and 
lead  them  to  the  foundation  of  all  living  —  unity 
with  themselves.  But  in  time  the  garden  of  chil- 
dren was  transformed  into  a  school-room,  where 
an  immature  woman  presides  over  such  employ- 
ments as  plaiting  straw  and  singing  about  the 
bluebird  on  the  branch.  The  technical  training  of 
which  so  much  is  heard  is  already  falling  to  a 
similar  level.  A  grown  boy  is  set  to  making  a 
rolling-pin ;  and  if  he  shows  unusual  aptitude  for 
the  task,  his  product  is  bedecked  with  a  ribbon 
and  suspended  in  the  family  sitting-room. 

The  master  mechanics  have  given  us  a  hint ; 
but  being  actuated  not  by  philanthropy  but  by 
business,  they  cannot  take  boys  at  a  sufficiently 
early  age  or  give  to  them  the  consideration 
proper  to  tender  years.  If  the  public  funds  which 
are  now  bestowed  upon  schools  were  handed  over 
to  railway  corporations  or  other  bodies  of  men 
equally  intelligent,  they  could  receive  boys  of  eight 
years  of  age,  train  their  bodies  not  for  one  work 
but  for  all  work,  and  by  training  their  bodies 
train  their  minds.  Books  are  composed  of  words, 
and  words  are  a  poor  substitute  for  things.  A 
boy  who  really  masters  a  proposition  about  angles 
in  Euclid  has  learned  to  think  straight.  With  a 


182  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

saw  and  a  mitre-box  he  learns  to  think  straight,  to 
do  straight,  and  he  learns  about  angles  besides. 
He  acquires  self-control  and  mastery  by  striving 
with  material  wood  to  convert  square  into  round 
by  means  of  cutting-tools,  by  subduing  iron  with 
fire  and  file,  and  by  compelling  the  earth  to  yield 
fruit  after  its  kind.  By  converting  ugliness  into 
beauty  with  colour  and  form  he  has  learned  the 
first  lesson  in  art.  All  boys  would  then  be  trained 
muscularly,  intellectually,  and  sesthetically  up  to 
the  limit  of  the  capacity  of  the  individual.  The 
law  of  natural  selection  would  have  free  play, 
and  from  this  sure  ground  the  boy  could  proceed 
according  to  his  bent  of  mind  and  become  crafts- 
man, scholar,  scientist,  or  artist,  and  excel  as  any 
one. 

From  this  studium  generale  each  pupil  would 
proceed  to  the  task  for  which  by  nature  he  was 
designed.  The  tragedy  of  life  does  not  lie  in  the 
essential  unworthiness  of  the  individual,  but  in 
his  unfitness  for  his  environment,  in  his  relative 
inefficiency  and  consequent  joylessness.  Men  are 
occupying  pulpits  who  would  make  splendid  figures 
as  pugilists  or,  if  they  lived  in  the  olden  times,  as 
pirates  on  their  own  quarter-decks.  Through  a 
disinterested  love  of  art  men  are  painting  pictures 
which  the  world  does  not  want,  when  they  might 


THE    FALLACY  IN   EDUCATION  183 

be  skilled  workmen,  master  craftsmen,  putting 
life  and  beauty  into  the  things  of  daily  need  and 
winning  for  themselves  independence,  content, 
and  joy. 

The  reason  the  art  of  our  own  time  is  sterile  is 
because  it  is  apart  from  life  and  divorced  from 
utility.  The  history  of  aesthetics  teaches  us  that 
a  fine  craftsmanship  underlies  art,  and  that  artists 
are  bred  only  from  a  race  of  craftsmen.  If  we 
train  the  craftsmen,  the  artist  will  take  care  of 
himself.  When  we  learn  that  the  sculptor  is  fel- 
low to  the  stone-cutter  we  shall  have  good  crafts- 
men engaged  in  pleasurable,  gainful,  and  pleasing 
employments,  instead  of  bad  artists  lacking  in 
creative  power.  Accordingly  each  boy,  as  Kous- 
seau  advises,  "  should  learn  an  honest  trade,  not, 
therefore,  that  of  embroiderer,  gilder,  tailor, 
musician,  comedian,  or  writer,  but  the  trade  of  a 
carpenter,"  for  example.  The  idolatrous  worship 
of  uniformity  which  has  been  substituted  for  the 
true  knowledge  of  education  is  worse  than  a  con- 
dition of  universal  ignorance  of  all  but  that  which 
individual  experience  teaches. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  convenience  that  a  craftsman 
should  be  able  to  read  and  to  write,  that  he  should 
have  some  knowledge  of  the  process  by  which 
numbers  are  added,  subtracted,  multiplied,  and 


184  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

divided;  and  nature  has  indicated  the  time  dur- 
ing which  such  information  could  most  conven- 
iently be  acquired,  if  it  has  not  already  been  ac- 
quired unconsciously.  In  the  mental  development 
of  every  boy  there  occurs  a  period  of  unusual  stu- 
pidity lasting  about  two  years.  It  extends  as  a 
rule  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  fifteenth  year, 
and  might  well  be  utilized  for  a  more  formal  in- 
struction by  means  of  books.  Such  a  process 
would  relegate  words  to  their  proper  position. 
Having  failed  to  apprehend  that  education  may 
come  through  the  avenue  of  other  senses  than 
the  eyes,  we  have  laid  too  much  stress  upon  the 
value  of  reading.  The  educative  value  of  the 
process  depends  somewhat  upon  what  one  reads, 
but  the  main  result  of  shortening  workmen's 
hours  of  labour  is  that  they  have  more  time  to 
read  the  newspapers.  The  pleasure  which  every 
child  and  most  men  derive  from  a  book  is  physi- 
cal, not  mental.  The  contrast  of  the  black  letters 
upon  the  white  page,  the  arrangement  of  letters 
in  words  of  unequal  length,  the  contexture  of 
words  in  lines,  sentences,  and  paragraphs  exer- 
cises a  curious  fascination  when  perceived  by  the 
eye.  This  phenomenon  is  not  peculiar  to  the  child 
alone,  but  is  observed  amongst  other  animals.  If 
a  hen  be  placed  upon  its  back  so  that  its  eyes  are 


THE   FALLACY   IN   EDUCATION  185 

fixed  upon  a  white  line,  it  will  lie  entranced  in 
that  position.  A  cat  may  have  its  whole  atten- 
tion absorbed  by  a  piece  of  coloured  glass,  and 
nothing  is  more  common  than  the  hypnotic  effect 
which  is  produced  upon  hospital  patients  by  a 
shifting,  shining  object  upon  which  they  are  di- 
rected to  fix  their  gaze.  The  main  object  of 
reading,  then,  is  to  distract  the  attention,  to  di- 
vert the  mind ;  but  the  mind  which  has  never 
dwelt  upon  any  subject  whatever  does  not  require 
distraction  or  diversion. 

It  is  only  by  this  means  that  we  can  attain  to 
a  civilization  once  more,  by  each  one  doing  his 
own  work  and  doing  it  well,  by  going  about  it 
quietly  all  the  days  of  his  life.  A  man  who  is  a 
rail-splitter  or  a  tanner  by  nature  and  environment 
will  not  split  rails  or  tan  hides  well  if  to-morrow 
he  expects  to  be  called  upon  to  preside  over  the 
councils  of  a  nation.  By  this  continual  eruption 
of  material  from  the  lower  strata  our  society  is  in 
a  condition  of  surge  and  tumult  and  cannot  clarify 
itself.  We  have  been  proclaiming  that  all  men 
are  free.  If  we  were  to  declare  that  all  men  are 
slaves,  we  should  solve  our  social  problem  and  be 
stating  the  truth  besides.  If  the  labourer  who  digs 
in  the  street  could  but  understand  that  the  phy- 
sician who  drives  by  in  his  carriage,  the  rich  man 


186  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

who  strives  to  look  unconscious  in  Lis  motor-car, 
or  the  woman  who  passes  in  all  the  pomp  of  the 
afternoon,  are  hedged  about  as  straitly  as  him- 
self, he  would  begin  to  do  his  work  with  content 
and  end  by  doing  it  with  joy.  All  work  is  the 
same.  None  is  more  menial  than  another.  Indeed 
a  physician  performs  daily  for  no  reward  offices 
from  which  the  meanest  servant  would  turn  with 
scorn  and  loathing.  He  is  educated,  and  sees  the 
meaning  of  what  he  does.  He  does  his  work 
deftly  and  takes  a  pleasure  in  the  doing  of  it. 

In  our  time  we  have  tried  many  experiments 
based  upon  an  assumed  analogy  between  ourselves 
and  other  members  of  the  animal  creation.  We 
have  returned  to  Nature.  We  have  eaten  un- 
bolted flour.  We  have  subsisted  upon  vegetables 
alone.  We  have  chewed  our  food  to  an  infinity  of 
attrition.  We  have  clothed  ourselves  and  have 
gone  naked.  We  have  abstained  from  alcohol  or 
stayed  away  from  church.  We  have  remained  idle 
or  compelled  others  to  work.  We  have  read  the 
newspapers.  We  have  voted.  We  have  educated 
ourselves ;  and  although  our  natures  may  have 
changed  somewhat  in  the  comparatively  few  years 
during  which  we  have  authentic  record  of  our 
past  career,  probably  it  would  be  a  safe  guess, 
that  we  change  so  slowly,  that  the  statement  is 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION  187 

true  for  all  practical  purposes,  that  we  do  not 
change,  just  as  the  formula  "  two  and  two  make 
four  "  is  sufficiently  accurate  for  casting  up  an 
account.  Until  we  have  a  new  breed  of  boys  we 
can  well  do  without  a  "  new  education,"  and  have 
resort  to  the  old  method  which  was  in  vogue  dur- 
ing the  childhood  of  the  race. 

This  method  is,  in  truth,  the  one  for  which  I 
plead.  It  is  not  new.  It  is  that  "  complete  and 
generous  education  that  fits  a  man  to  perform 
justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices, 
both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war."  It 
is  as  near  as  town-dwellers  may  come  to  that  which 
many  a  boy  has  received  to  perfection  in  a  country 
home  with  its  multifarious  occupation,  brought  up 
by  intelligent,  well-to-do,  and  godly  parents  with 
the  assistance  of  a  good  schoolmaster  armed  with 
a  short  stick  or  a  dichotomous  piece  of  leather. 

It  does  not  lie  within  the  narrow  compass  of 
the  essay,  with  its  rigid  bounds  and  difficult  form, 
even  to  indicate  the  detail  of  a  plan.  I  cannot, 
however,  refrain  from  adding  one  last  word  :  that 
such  a  system  would  lend  itself  admirably  to  the 
creation  of  that  love  of  country  which  is  called 
patriotism  by  inculcating  the  obligation  of  defend- 
ing it;  it  would  harden  the  habits  into  morality 
and  develop  the  feelings  of  submission  and  de- 


188  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

pendence  into  good  manners  and  religion.  In  such 
schools  boys  might  be  "  stirred  up  with  high  hopes 
of  living  to  be  brave  men,  and  worthy  patriots, 
dear  to  God  "  ;  of  those  exercises  they  would  have 
an  abundance, "  which  keep  them  healthy,  nimble, 
strong,  and  well  in  breath,  which  being  tempered 
with  precepts  of  true  fortitude  and  patience  will 
turn  into  a  national  valour  and  make  them  hate 
the  cowardice  of  doing  wrong " ;  and  "  in  those 
vernal  seasons  of  the  year,  when  the  air  is  calm 
and  pleasant,"  they  would  not  indulge  in  that 
"  injury  and  suUenness  against  nature  not  to  go 
out  and  see  her  riches,  and  partake  in  her  rejoic- 
ing with  heaven  and  earth."  That  was  the  prac- 
tice in  the  Greek  schools.  The  pupils  were  trained 
to  fear  the  gods,  to  honour  their  heroes,  to  speak 
the  truth,  to  defend  their  native  land.  We  may 
well  compare  this  rich  and  miscellaneous  grazing 
with  "  that  asinine  feast  of  sowthistle  and  bram- 
bles which  is  commonly  set  before  them  as  all  the 
food  and  entertainment  of  their  tenderest  and 
most  docile  age,"  especially  in  the  schools  of  the 
United  States  and  of  Canada. 

The  subject  of  education  is  peculiarly  rich  in 
paradox.  Those  who  seek  it  will  not  find  it.  The 
boy  who  is  taught  to  snatch  his  piece  and  run, 
who  contrives  his  work  that  it  may  produce  the 


THE  FALLACY  IN  EDUCATION         189 

most  effect  and  make  the  best  show,  who  chooses 
the  thing  which  serves  his  immediate  purpose 
visibly,  becomes  unconsciously  insincere  and 
unwittingly  selfish.  The  essence  of  education  is 
unconsciousness.  The  pursuit  of  culture  ends  in 
pedantry  or  pretence,  as  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness ends  in  cynicism  or  misery,  as  the  pursuit 
of  office  makes  of  a  man  a  politician.  Nothing 
that  is  sought  is  worth  the  having  when  it  is 
found.  "  Seek  and  ye  shall  find  "  is  a  favourite 
inscription  for  display  in  the  school-room.  Rather 
would  one  write,  "  Seekest  thou  great  things  for 
thyself  ?  Seek  them  not." 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY 
I 

I  AM  not  insensible  to  the  humour  of  the  situation 
in  which  I  have  chosen  to  involve  myself,  expound- 
ing for  the  benefit  of  theologians  the  fallacy 
which  lies  in  their  theology ;  and  yet  I  cannot  rid 
myself  of  the  remembrance  that  theologians  have 
their  humours  too. 

In  the  days  of  their  mediaeval  greatness,  when 
they  assembled  with  hieratic  pomp  for  the  disputa- 
tion of  questions  which  were  so  serious  for  them 
and  of  so  little  concern  to  us,  it  was  the  custom  to 
appoint  a  filius  terrcB^  a  child  of  the  earth,  whose 
function  it  was  with  gibe  and  jest  to  remind  those 
honoured  ones  that  all  human  glory  is  destined  to 
perish.  In  assuming  this  congenial  character,  I 
shall  neither  resent  the  taunt  nor  disclaim  the 
credit  that  this  self -election  to  the  humble  office  of 
speaking  as  a  fool  has  been  done  with  perspicacity. 

If  we  relied  entirely  upon  research  in  a  dic- 
tionary, we  should  say  that  theology  was  merely 
talk  about  God,  as  literature  is  talk  about  life,  in 
which  the  talkers  are  more  concerned  about  the 


194  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

manner  of  saying  than  with  the  thing  itself.  Com- 
ment upon  life  is  mistaken  for  life,  as  a  theory  of 
God  is  substituted  for  God.  But  what  do  theolo- 
gians imagine  theology  to  be,  and  whom  shall  we 
put  forward  to  speak  for  his  fellows  ?  The  name 
of  John  Knox  leaps  to  the  mind  instinctively, 
but  he  would  involve  us  in  needless  controversy; 
and  if  we  gave  place  to  Cotton  Mather,  another 
favourite,  he  would  be  sure  to  say  something  fool- 
ish, though  he  would  say  it  in  excellent  language. 
Repressing  these  predilections,  let  us  enquire  of 
Cardinal  Newman  what  theology  is.  This  selection 
of  spokesman  is  a  concession  to  fairness,  because 
Cardinal  Newman  speaks  with  sincerity,  well  and 
clear.  Also  he  has  other  specific  qualifications  for 
the  office  which  may  be  cited  by  way  of  cre- 
dentials. "  From  the  age  of  fifteen,"  he  writes  in 
that  great  apology  for  his  life,  "  dogma  has  been 
the  fundamental  principle  of  my  religion  ;  I  know 
no  other  religion ;  I  cannot  enter  into  the  idea 
of  any  other  sort  of  religion  ;  religion,  as  a  mere 
sentiment,  is  to  me  a  dream  and  mockery."  To 
complete  the  category  of  his  credentials  for  the 
office  of  public  exponent,  we  may  add  one  further 
affirmation :  "  I  loved  to  act  as  feeling  myself  in 
my  bishop's  sight  as  if  it  were  the  sight  of  God." 
Bishops  at  least  will  agree  that  Cardinal  Newman 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY  195 

has  spoken  in  the  proper  theological  spirit,  and 
that  the  selection  is  not  unwise. 

"  By  theology,"  in  his  "  Second  Discourse," 
our  witness  affirms,  "  I  simply  mean  the  science 
of  God,  or  the  truths  we  know  about  God,  put  into 
a  system,  just  as  we  have  a  science  of  the  stars 
and  call  it  astronomy,  or  of  the  crust  of  the  earth 
and  call  it  geology."  That  is  a  plain  definition. 
The  men  of  science  took  the  theologian  at  his 
word.  The  astronomers  and  geologists  welcomed 
him  to  their  ranks ;  but  they  insisted  that  he 
should  employ  the  scientific  method.  Their  interest 
lay  not  in  what  he  said,  but  in  what  he  could  prove 
according  to  the  principles  which  he  chose  to  adopt. 
That  was  not  asking  too  much.  His  attempt  to 
make  God  a  subject  of  scientific  speculation  ended 
in  failure.  Nothing  was  proven. 

This  was  the  last  and  fatal  stand  of  the  theo- 
logians. They  took  into  their  hands  the  carnal 
weapon  of  science ;  they  perished  by  it.  That  has 
ever  been  the  result  when  the  sword  of  the  spirit 
was  abandoned  for  other  means  of  contest.  The 
employment  of  science  in  matters  of  the  spirit  has 
succeeded  no  better  than  the  employment  of  force 
or  political  device. 

To  us  in  these  days  the  marvel  is  not  the  splen- 
dour of  the  "  Apologia  "  which  Newman  made, 


196  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

but  that  it  should  have  had  to  be  written  at  all ; 
that,  in  short,  he  should  have  felt  there  was  any- 
thing to  apologize  for.  If  to  him  ^^  the  jure  divino 
was  the  voice  of  my  bishop  in  his  own  person," 
he  should  not  have  been  put  to  the  question,  and 
compelled  to  asseverate  that  he  "  scorned  and  de- 
tested lying,  and  quibbling,  and  double-tongued 
practice,  and  slyness,  and  cunning,  and  smooth- 
ness, and  cant,  and  pretence."  The  reason  for  this 
present-day  toleration  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  num- 
ber of  theologians  is  inconsiderable  who  protest, 
as  Newman  did  in  his  "  Lyra  Apostolica,"  that 
"  it  would  be  a  gain  to  the  country  were  it  vastly 
more  superstitious,  more  bigoted,  more  gloomy, 
more  fierce  in  its  religion,  than  at  present  it  shows 
itself  to  be." 

Conduct  of  this  nature  was  provocative  of  "  athe- 
ism "  in  the  minds  of  the  scientists ;  and  it  is  worth 
remarking  that  the  last  atheist  disappeared  with 
the  last  theologian.  I  have  not  seen  one  these 
thirty  years,  with  the  single  exception  of  a  village 
shoemaker  last  summer,  who  appeared  to  combine 
in  himself  the  characteristics  of  both.  I  should 
add  that,  upon  further  enquiry,  this  humble  per- 
son turned  out  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  "  free- 
thinker " ;  that  is,  he  thought  about  things  as 
freely  as  his  limited  intelligence  would  permit, 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     197 

and  the  opprobrious  epithet  was  fastened  to  him 
because  he  protested  that  religion  did  not  consist 
in  submission  to  ecclesiastical  authority.  What 
made  the  situation  more  perplexing  was  that  this 
anomalous  person  was  a  man  of  good  behaviour, 
of  great  boldness  in  his  faith,  especially  apt  to 
teach,  —  indeed  possessing  those  qualities  which 
are  specifically  commended  in  a  bishop  or  deacon. 
During  the  present  generation  this  delusion 
that  science  has  something  to  do  with  religion  has 
wrought  havoc  in  the  lives  of  men,  on  account  of 
the  previous  assumption  that  theology  had  some- 
thing essential  to  do  with  religion.  The  theologians 
had  reason  to  fear  that  the  report  of  a  Commis- 
sion appointed  to  study  the  formation  of  the  earth 
and  the  animals  which  dwell  upon  it  might  be 
at  variance  with  the  account  which  was  given  by 
early  Hebrew  writers.  Their  theology  was  based 
upon  a  tradition  which  was  hard  to  distinguish 
from  a  legend.  Religion  was  inextricably  bound 
up  with  theology,  and  based  with  it  upon  the  crust 
of  the  earth  instead  of  in  the  hearts  of  men.  Their 
science  turned  out  to  be  false ;  and  we  must  not 
blame  the  scientists  too  severely  for  concluding 
that  their  theology  was  as  false  as  their  science, 
or  for  casting  suspicion  upon  religion,  their  com- 
pulsory ally. 


198  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

These  ruthless  investigators  were  put  under 
the  ban.  They  endured  the  penalty  with  apparent 
nonchalance.  Living  in  an  age  when  the  Eras- 
tian  doctrine  of  state  supremacy  in  ecclesiastical 
matters  was  sufficiently  established  to  prevent  the 
fires  being  lighted  in  this  world  at  least,  and 
taking  advantage  of  the  lack  of  certainty  which 
exists  about  the  arrangements  for  the  punishment 
of  obduracy  in  the  next,  they  hardened  their 
hearts  and  declared  that  men  could  get  along 
very  well  without  religion.  When  the  pressure 
was  lifted,  this  fallacy  also  disproved  itself.  A 
scientist  may  now  be  as  religious  as  he  likes,  and 
no  aspersion  be  cast  upon  his  knowledge  by  the 
scientists,  nor  upon  his  religion  by  the  theologians. 

Science  is  not  the  only  thing  of  importance 
in  the  world.  Let  us  not,  however,  think  more 
lightly  of  it  than  we  ought ;  for  the  study  of  it 
has  this  advantage  at  least :  it  promotes  a  desire 
for  correct  opinions,  for  uprightness  of  under- 
standing, and  is  a  remedy  against  the  spirit  of 
lying,  because  a  man  who  devotes  his  mind  to  the 
discovery  of  facts  takes  no  pleasure  in  the  inven- 
tion of  falsehood.  Also  it  has  helped  to  rid  the 
world  of  much  theological  rubbish,  so  that  reli- 
gion may  prevail. 

If  science  had  anything  to  do  with  religion, 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     199 

where  would  the  saints  appear?  To  the  eyes  of 
Anaxagoras  the  sun  was  "  a  red-hot  stone  twice 
as  big  as  Peloponnesus,"  and  to  the  eyes  of  Jesus 
the  sun  rose  every  morning.  To  Paul  the  uni- 
verse appeared  as  a  three-storeyed  edifice.  The 
lowest  storey  was  the  realm  of  the  dead.  Upon 
it  was  erected  the  terrestrial  world,  and  over  it 
the  heavens  with  their  inhabitants.  Heaven  was 
a  series  of  arched  domes  superimposed  one  upon 
another,  and,  as  we  are  Informed  elsewhere,  con- 
taining many  mansions.  He  had  visited  the  third 
of  these  heavens.  In  this  world  evil  spirits  were 
hovering  about,  and  they  were  so  susceptible  to 
female  beauty  that  women  were  obliged  to  veil 
their  faces  as  a  protection  for  themselves  and  for 
the  evil  spirits  as  well. 

Cardinal  Newman,  who  aspired  to  create  a 
scientific  theology  which  would  rank  with  geology 
and  astronomy,  had  a  poor  equipment  for  the  task. 
His  views  of  cosmology  were  as  primitive  as  those 
which  were  taught  in  the  schools  of  Alexandria. 
Angels,  he  considered,  were  employed  to  carry 
on  the  economy  of  the  visible  world,  and  were  the 
real  causes  of  motion,  light,  and  life,  and  of  those 
elementary  principles  which  are  called  the  laws 
of  nature.  Besides  the  hosts  of  evil  spirits,  his 
system  made  provision  for  a  middle  race,  Baifiovia^ 


200  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

neither  in  heaven  nor  in  hell ;  partially  fallen, 
capricious,  wayward  ;  noble  or  crafty,  benevolent 
or  malicious,  as  the  case  might  be.  These  beings, 
he  thought,  gave  a  sort  of  intelligence  to  races, 
nations,  and  classes  of  men  ;  and  so  he  accounted 
for  the  varying  character  of  states  and  govern- 
ments. He  found  confirmation  of  this  view  in  the 
mention  of  "  the  Prince  of  Persia "  in  the  pro- 
phecy of  Daniel,  and  of  "  the  angels  of  the  seven 
churches "  in  the  Apocalypse.  Newman  was  a 
grown  man  when  he  made  these  bold  speculations, 
and  a  further  development  of  the  doctrine  was 
completed  in  1837,  at  a  time  when  he  was  thirty- 
six  years  of  age.  If  the  scientific  men  of  his  time 
were  concerned  at  all  with  these  notions,  they 
must  have  thought  them  extremely  silly,  and 
have  placed  an  equally  low  degree  of  credibility 
upon  his  exposition  of  the  nature  of  God,  when 
it  was  attempted  by  the  methods  of  the  astrono- 
mers and  geologists,  which  he  showed  himself 
so  incapable  of  employing.  To  us  the  lesson  is 
that  a  man  may  be  religious  and  be  devoid  of 
both  science  and  common  sense. 

A  scientific  conception  of  the  Universe  has 
nothing  to  do  with  faith,  nor  with  goodness  and 
tjreatness  of  character :  "  Le  coeur  a  ses  raisons 
que  le  raison  ne  conn  ait  pas."  Accuracy  of  opinion 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     201 

has  nothing  to  do  with  religion  and  little  with 
conduct.  False  opinions  may  be  exchanged  me- 
chanically for  true  opinions,  without  in  the  least 
altering  the  habit  of  mind  by  which  false  opinions 
are  produced. 

Newman  had  a  small  mind.  He  devotes  four 
pages  of  his  "  Apologia  "  to  recording  a  tiresome 
correspondence  between  himself,  young  men,  their 
uncles,  and  their  bishops ;  and  eventually  it  turned 
out  that  the  whole  bother  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
"  an  anxious  lady  had  said  something  or  other 
which  had  been  misinterpreted  against  her  real 
meaning."  These  were  the  people  who  were  cir- 
culating new  and  ascetic  opinions  in  the  Common 
Rooms  of  Oxford  when  Froude  left,  and  new 
perambulators  in  the  parks  when  he  returned. 
But  Newman's  real  defect  was  his  preoccupation 
over  his  own  soul.  At  all  hazards  he  was  bound  to 
save  it.  That  is  the  egoism  which  Jesus  rebuked 
with  the  words  :  He  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find 
it.  This  lack  of  humanity  is  the  mark  of  that 
class  of  theologians  which  we  are  for  the  moment 
considering,  and  it  ends  in  that  form  of  hatred 
and  cruelty  which  is  known  specifically  as  odium 
theologicum.  All  sin,  if  tracked  to  its  ultimate 
lair,  will  be  found  in  cruelty,  which  is  a  much 
deeper  saying  than  appears  from  a  view  of  the 


202  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

surface.  Cruelty  is  the  besetting  sin  of  the  lesser 
theologian.  It  is  that  which  has  always  qualified 
him  for  a  seat  in  the  Sanhedrim,  and  for  the 
sacred  office  of  the  Inquisition. 

We  can  always  get  some  light  upon  a  witness 
from  the  men  whom  he  admires  and  the  qualities 
upon  which  that  admiration  is  based.  Newman 
was  "  in  the  closest  and  most  affectionate  friend- 
ship "  with  Richard  Hurrell  Froude,  and  refers 
to  "  the  gentleness  and  tenderness  of  nature,  the 
playfulness,  the  free  elastic  force  and  graceful 
versatility  of  his  mind."  Mr.  Herbert  Paul  fur- 
nishes us  with  some  fine  examples  of  this  "  play- 
fulness "  of  Hurrell  Froude  in  the  treatment  of 
his  young  brother,  whom  we  know  as  James 
Anthony.  He  would  take  the  lad  by  the  heels 
and  stir  with  his  head  the  mud  at  the  bottom  of  a 
pond.  He  threw  him  out  of  a  boat,  and  with  fine 
theological  intuition  persuaded  him  that  a  certain 
wood  was  haunted  by  a  devil.  Hurrell  and  his 
archidiaconal  father  joined  forces  in  beating  the 
boy  because  he  would  not  admit  the  truth  of  a 
false  charge,  and  threatened  him  with  continued 
repetitions  until  he  should  confess.  To  a  more 
humane  generation  this  behaviour  does  not  appear 
to  be  mere  "  playfulness,"  but  rather  the  conduct 
of  "  superstitious,  bigoted,  gloomy,  fierce  "  men, 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    203 

whom  to  possess,  Cardinal  Newman  supposed  was 
to  the  country  so  great  a  gain.  Following  the 
advice  of  Paul,  these  theologians  looked  into  their 
own  hearts  for  proof  of  the  existence  of  God,  and 
there  they  found  the  spirit  of  hatred  which  they 
attributed  to  Him.  God  created  man :  men  retort 
by  creating  God. 

The  theologians  are  much  like  the  logicians. 
They  take  an  event  in  human  experience  and  re- 
flect upon  it.  The  logicians  discovered  that  a  man 
may  come  to  a  correct  conclusion  by  a  process  of 
reasoning,  and  they  proceeded  to  examine  the 
steps  by  which  he  arrived.  Eventually  they  de- 
vised a  series  of  names  and  a  system  of  formulae ; 
and  protested  that  no  man  could  arrive  at  a  cor- 
rect conclusion  unless  he  followed  their  directions. 
The  logician  made  the  unwarranted  inference  that 
he  was  the  epitome  of  reasoning  humanity  with 
his  magical  devices,  whilst  in  reality  he  was  a  bar 
to  fresh  perception.  But  in  our  own  time  men 
who  were  ignorant  of  the  apparatus  of  the  logi- 
cians attained  to  definite  conclusions  in  quite  other 
fashion  upon  such  matters  as  the  formation  of 
the  earth's  crust  and  the  evolution  of  the  animals 
which  inhabit  it.  The  fabric  of  formal  reasoning 
fell  to  the  ground  to  make  way  for  the  coordina- 
tion of  successive  perceptions  of  actual  things. 


204  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

The  theologians  and  their  allies  the  ecclesias- 
tics also  went  too  far  in  applying  human  logic  to 
divine  affairs,  and  mistook  themselves  for  God, 
sitting  in  the  temple  and  shewing  themselves  that 
they  were  God.  But  they  too  were  rudely  jolted 
from  their  high  place  when  men  discovered  anew 
that  God  may  be  found  without  their  interven- 
tion, by  all  who  seek  diligently  in  the  spirit  of 
truth.  By  this  short  cut  they  were  put  upon  one 
side. 

The  form  of  society  which  we  know  as  modern 
had  its  origin  at  the  time  when  men  began  to 
popularize  what  had  been  regal,  to  civilize  what 
had  been  military,  to  laicize  what  had  been  cleri- 
cal. That  great  movement  which  with  some  degree 
of  vagueness  is  called  the  Reformation,  was  a 
protest  of  the  laity  against  ecclesiasticism,  and 
not  a  contest  for  the  superiority  of  any  rival  set 
of  dogmas.  The  Renascence  was  something  more 
than  a  protest  against  ecclesiastical  Christianity : 
it  was  a  frank  revival  of  Paganism.  In  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  great  movement  was  the  di- 
vorce of  science  from  both  theology  and  ecclesi- 
asticism ;  but  the  process  of  laicization  is  not  yet 
complete,  and  many  anomalies  remain.  Of  these, 
one  example  will  serve  for  Protestants  and  Catho- 
lics alike.   We  still  hold  to  the  tradition  that 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     205 

none  but  the  clergy  can  read  and  write.  In  the 
olden  times  a  criminal  might  escape  the  penalty 
of  his  crime  by  pleading  that  he  was  a  cleric.  In 
time  this  righteousness  was  imputed  to  all  who 
had  some  rudiments  of  book-learning ;  and  to 
this  day  the  idea  persists  that  there  is  something 
in  the  personality  and  office  of  an  ecclesiastic 
which  qualifies  him  for  a  seat  upon  a  school- 
board. 

One  who  occupies  his  leisure  with  the  reading 
of  theology  will  not  necessarily  attain  to  any 
unusual  knowledge  of  God ;  but  he  will  get  a  fine 
understanding  of  theologians,  because  they  are 
more  commonly  speaking  of  one  another  than  of 
God,  and  not  always  in  the  most  complimentary 
terms.  The  words  liar,  innovator,  traitor,  rogue, 
robber,  murderer,  are  frequently  in  their  mouths. 
I  am  not  saying  that  these  epithets  are  lacking 
in  definitive  value.  They  are  accurately  descrip- 
tive, when  applied  to  men  whose  forgeries  lie 
upon  every  page  of  the  two  Testaments,  who  pol- 
luted that  well  of  truth,  who  falsified  the  words 
of  Jesus,  and  wrested  his  meaning  to  their  own 
ends. 

Traditional  theology  was  an  attempt  to  inves- 
tigate the  nature  of  God  by  sheer  force  of  human 
reason,  in  much  the  same  way  that  Plato  recom- 


206  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

mended  that  astronomy  be  studied,  without  even 
looking  at  the  heavens.  It  was  not  long  before 
these  theologians  abandoned  all  thought  of  get- 
tins:  near  to  the  heart  of  God  in  the  task  of  dis- 
closing  their  own  natures  to  the  world.  Their 
opinions  were  dictated  by  hatred.  Their  deci- 
sions, when  they  assembled  in  conclave,  were 
often  determined  by  political  considerations. 
Their  devices  were  the  outcome  of  conspiracy, 
and  they  had  no  compunction  about  altering 
them  secretly  before  they  were  promulgated,  if 
occasion  demanded.  Many  an  opinion  of  the 
"  early  fathers  "  and  of  the  "  early  church  "  was 
fabricated  in  the  chambers  of  women  and  in  the 
cabinets  of  politicians,  who  were  no  more  scrupu- 
lous then  than  they  are  now. 

For  purposes  of  illustration  we  may  select  the 
last  of  the  eighteen  ecumenical  Councils,  com- 
monly known  as  the  Council  of  Trent,  which 
condemned  the  doctrines  of  the  Reformation  con- 
cerning the  Bible,  original  sin,  and  justification. 
I  shall  follow  the  account  of  Bishop  Stubbs,  a 
historian  who  may  be  trusted  to  write  in  the  true 
theological  spirit,  since  he  accepts  the  fall  of 
Adam  as  an  event  to  which  political  consequences 
may  be  traced,  and  disclaims  responsibility  for 
the  "infidelities  and  unbeliefs"  with  which  David 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     207 

Hume  corrupted  the  Germans,  on  the  ground  that 
the  author  of  them  was  a  Scotchman. 

This  Council  was  the  means  by  which  the 
Emperor  worked  upon  the  Protestants  and  tlie 
Pope  worked  upon  the  Emperor.  When  the  Pope 
wished  to  help  the  Emperor  he  called  the  Council. 
When  he  wished  to  thwart  him  he  dismissed  it.  It 
did  not  suit  the  Pope  that  the  Council  should  be 
strong,  lest  Charles  might  gain  control  of  it  and 
revive  the  Council  of  Basel,  and  even  insist  upon 
Papal  responsibility.  The  Pope  did  not  love  the 
Protestants ;  yet  he  was  willing  to  aid  them  for  the 
sake  of  injuring  the  Emperor.  Again,  he  would 
countenance  the  Council  if  for  the  time  being; 
he  could  score  against  the  Protestants.  They, 
on  their  part,  saw  clearly  enough  that  a  Council 
under  either  Pope  or  King  would  be  one-sided, 
and  not  ecumenic,  Teutonic,  or  national. 

Before  the  Council  began,  Charles  was  in  arms 
against  the  League  of  Smalkald,  each  side  wait- 
ing for  a  decree  to  attack  or  be  attacked.  Whilst 
the  Council  was  sitting,  Charles  gained  a  suc- 
cess, and  the  Pope,  alarmed  at  his  growing  great- 
ness, induced  half  the  Council  to  adjourn  to 
Bologna,  on  the  pretence  that  there  was  danger 
from  the  approaching  plague.  Charles  then  sum- 
moned the  Diet  at  Augsburg  to  petition  the  Pope 


208  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

that  a  full  Council  be  called.  He  bargained  with 
the  states  to  receive  the  Tridentine  decrees,  re- 
leasing one,  buying  another,  and  coercing  a  third. 
The  free  cities  would  accept  the  decrees  only 
on  condition  that  their  own  teachers  should  be 
heard,  and  all  questions  decided  by  Scripture  and 
primitive  tradition. 

Even  yet  the  Pope  declined  to  coerce  the  se- 
ceding theologians,  and  Charles  drew  up  the  In- 
terim, which  was  much  like  a  pronouncement  of 
Henry  VHI.  This  document,  it  may  be  added, 
was  drawn  up  by  two  Catholics  and  one  nominal 
Protestant ;  and  disputed  points  of  doctrine  were 
decided  by  a  majority  vote.  The  Spanish  army 
enforced  the  Interim,  and  Charles  approved  the 
truth  of  its  doctrine  by  the  successful  siege  of 
Magdeburg  under  Maurice  of  Saxony,  who  in 
turn  became  a  traitor  to  his  Emperor.  Paul  III 
claimed  Parma  and  Piacenza  as  the  property  of 
the  See  of  Rome  ;  his  grandson,  Ottavio  Farnese, 
claimed  them  as  his  duchy ;  Charles  claimed  them 
as  overlord  of  Milan,  and  the  Pope  would  not 
call  the  Council  till  this  matter  was  settled.  It 
was  all  a  question  of  intrigue.  When  in  turn 
Charles  became  impotent,  the  Council  adjourned 
for  two  years  and  did  not  meet  for  ten.  Cam- 
paigns in  Piedmont  and  the  Netherlands,  diets 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     209 

at  Augsburg  and  Worms,  intermissions  and  re- 
cesses, sessions  and  postponements,  the  marriage 
of  a  Medici  or  a  Farnese,  an  alliance  with  Rome, 
with  Venice,  or  Henry  of  England,  —  all  this 
was  bound  up  with  a  resistance  to  Solyman  the 
Sultan,  and  in  the  end  it  is  strange  that  Europe 
remained  Christian  at  all. 

Nor  should  we  fail  to  remember  that  Paul  him- 
self was  a  very  great  theologian.  His  place  may 
be  set  forth  in  the  following  schema :  A.  Paul. 
a.  Paul  the  apostle ;  h.  Saul  the  theologian.  B. 
Other  theologians.  In  his  attempt  to  convert  re- 
ligion into  the  terms  of  logic  Paul  resorted  freely 
to  the  methods  of  those  whom  I  have  included 
in  class  B.  The  method  of  his  argument  and 
the  temper  which  he  displayed  often  agreed  with 
theirs.  When  he  had  a  point  to  make,  he  made 
it  in  the  readiest  way.  He  did  not  choose  to  be 
wise  beyond  the  needs  of  the  case.  He  would 
seize  any  weapon  at  his  hand.  Indeed  a  bad  ar- 
gument is  sometimes  more  effectual  than  a  better 
and  more  subtle  one,  on  the  principle  that  a  fool 
is  properly  answered  according  to  his  folly.  A 
coarse  jest  was  his  retort  upon  those  who  were 
making  such  a  bother  about  the  necessity  for  cir- 
cumcision. A  passionate  curse  he  did  not  disdain : 
"I  have  said  it  before  and  I  repeat  it  now,  if 


210  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

any  one  preach  another  gospel  to  you,  let  him 
be  accursed."  His  favourite  oath,  "  God  is  my 
witness,"  he  bestowed  freely ;  and  "  I  lie  not " 
was  his  common  protest.  In  his  calmer  moments 
he  was  quite  willing  to  avail  himself  of  the  finest 
rabbinical  quibble. 

Any  stick  was  good  enough  to  beat  a  Corinth- 
ian dog,  but  when  Paul  came  to  deal  with  the 
Pharisees  and  Scribes  he  was  obliged  to  employ 
weapons  of  their  own  choosing.  "  Thou  fool,"  was 
the  retort  upon  the  objector  at  Corinth,  who  asked 
the  perfectly  reasonable  question  :  "  How  are  the 
dead  raised  up,  and  with  what  body  do  they  come  ?  " 
This  simple  method  of  exegesis  would  not  suffice, 
if  he  were  to  satisfy  the  subtle  theological  scepti- 
cism which  was  bred  in  the  schools  of  Jerusalem. 
He  attacked  the  schoolmen  on  their  own  ground 
and  turned  against  them  their  own  weapons, — 
haggadic  allegory,  and  rabbinical  evasion,  sub- 
terfuge, and  quibble.  When  he  would  convince 
them  that  salvation  was  not  for  the  Jew  alone  but 
also  for  the  Gentile,  he  was  capable  of  employing 
a  casuistry  equal  to  their  own.  The  passage  in  the 
letter  to  the  Galatians  is  characteristic :  "  Now 
to  Abraham  were  the  promises  spoken,  and  to  his 
seed."  From  this  Paul  concludes  that  "  seed " 
means  Christ.  If  the  Jews  were  meant,  the  word 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     211 

would  have  been  seeds,  though  at  the  same  time 
he  was  quite  well  aware  that  seed  is  used  in  the 
same  sense  as  offspring ;  and  he  founds  his  whole 
argument  upon  the  absence  of  characters  which 
distinguish  the  singular  from  the  plural  form. 
Hosea  had  prophesied  that  God  would  put  away 
his  people  and  "call  it  not  my  people."  In  defi- 
ance of  the  true  meaning,  Paul  interprets  "  not  my 
people  "  as  the  heathen,  and  finds  in  prophecy  a 
justification  of  his  mission  to  the  Gentiles.  Still 
more  disingenuous  is  the  arraignment  of  the  Jews 
as  the  children  of  the  handmaid,  and  not  the 
children  of  Sarah,  who  alone  were  heirs  of  the  pro- 
mise. The  bond-woman,  Hagar,  was  an  Arabian. 
Mount  Sinai  is  in  Arabia.  Consequently  the  law 
given  on  Sinai  was  for  the  children  of  the  slave, 
because  her  marriage  with  the  Patriarch  signifies 
the  covenant  of  Sinai.  As  a  final  curiosity  of  his 
exegesis,  he  adopts  the  humane  command,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  which  treadeth  out  the 
corn,"  as  a  warrant  for  ministers  being  supported 
by  their  congregations. 

Sir  William  Ramsay  illustrates  very  well  this 
capacity  of  Paul  for  becoming  all  things  to  all 
men,  and  writing  according  to  the  need  of  the 
case.  The  four  South  Galatian  cities  were  largely 
Asiatic,  and  the  idea  of  freedom  was  new  to  them. 


212  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

It  is  upon  this  Idea  that  Paul  insists  when  he  writes 
to  them.  In  his  letter  to  the  Galatians,  we  are  told, 
he  uses  the  words  "free,"  "freedom,"  "set  free," 
eleven  times  in  six  chapters ;  whilst  in  the  sixteen 
chapters  of  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is 
composed  these  words  occur  only  seven  times  ;  in 
the  twenty-nine  chapters  to  the  Corinthians,  eight 
times  ;  and  only  twice  in  the  forty-three  chapters 
of  his  remaining  letters.  In  Rome  liberty  was  well 
founded.  In  the  Greek  cities  of  Aryan  lands 
liberty  had  degenerated  into  licence,  and  in  writ- 
ing to  them,  it  is  upon  order,  self-restraint,  and 
contentment  that  Paul  insists.  This  rabbinical 
method  of  reasoning  would  delight  the  heart  of 
Paul ;  but  he  would  be  quick  to  detect  the  fallacy 
in  the  argument,  namely,  that  the  chapters  in  these 
letters  are  not  of  equal  length.  It  would  be  so 
easy  for  an  opponent  to  arrive  at  a  contrary  con- 
clusion by  making  a  different  division  of  chapters, 
that  the  finer  method  should  have  been  employed 
of  counting  the  verses,  the  words,  or  even  the 
separate  characters. 

Shall  we  then  be  content  to  live  as  the  beasts 
live  and  die  as  they  die  ?  That  is  the  fate  which 
the  theologians  promise  us  if  we  do  not  adopt 
some  one  of  their  various  systems.  I  take  leave 
to  deny  that  this  is  the  only  alternative,  and  am 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     213 

bold  enough  to  affirm  that  they  have  not  made 
God  any  clearer  to  us.  Oa  the  contrary,  they 
have  led  us  away  from  Him  by  the  attempt  to 
master  the  divine  reason  by  human  logic.  They 
failed  as  utterly  as  those  lecherous  and  quarrel- 
some knights  who  were  wont  to  occupy  them- 
selves in  the  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail.  The  failure 
would  have  been  worse  had  the  attempt  succeeded. 
Worst  of  all,  they  barred  the  only  way  by  which 
God  may  be  known. 

There  is  a  great  saying  of  Joubert's :  "  It  is  not 
hard  to  know  God,  provided  we  do  not  force  our- 
selves to  define  Him."  An  older  and  greater  than 
Joubert  has  said  :  "  Love  God  we  rather  may 
than  either  know  him  or  by  speech  utter  him  ;  and 
yet  had  men  liefer  by  knowledge  never  find  that 
which  they  seek,  than  by  love  possess  that  thing 
which  also  without  love  were  in  vain  found."  A 
greater  than  either  has  said  that  God  may  not 
only  be  known :  He  may  be  seen  by  the  simple 
device  of  purity  of  heart.  Not  even  the  theolo- 
gians can  find  God  by  any  other  method.  "  Pour 
savoir  ce  qu'il  est,  il  faut  etre  Dieu  meme  "  ;  and 
I  do  not  suppose  the  theologians  think  us  so  sim- 
ple-minded as  to  believe  that  they  have  fulfilled 
this  hard  condition. 

"  Men  are  never  so  noble  or  so  base  as  in  their 


214  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

religion  " :  Principal  Fairbairn  writes  these  words 
in  his  introduction  to  Mr.  Jordan's  "  Compara- 
tive Study."  What  he  really  means  by  these 
words,  which,  as  they  stand,  are  false  and  blas- 
phemous, is  that  men  are  never  so  noble  as  in 
their  religion,  and  base  men  are  never  so  base  as 
in  their  theology.  Religion  never  makes  a  man 
base,  but  this  statement  demonstrates  the  inca- 
pacity of  the  clerical  mind  to  understand  the 
clear  distinction  between  religion  and  theology. 

It  is  a  task  only  too  congenial  to  Protestants 
to  expatiate  upon  the  evils  which  were  found  in 
the  Catholic  church  of  the  olden  time.  The  reason 
they  find  them  there  is  because  that  was  the  only 
church  in  existence.  If  there  had  been  others, 
evil  would  surely  have  been  found  in  them. 
When  I  refer  to  this  aspect  of  the  work  which 
theology,  organized  and  buttressed  by  ecclesias- 
ticism,  has  done  for  the  world,  and  mention  some 
of  its  evils,  it  is  to  be  understood  that  I  have  not 
in  mind  the  church  whose  Bishop  is  in  Rome,  any 
more  than  the  church  in  England,  or  the  church 
in  Scotland.  I  am  not  thinking  of  Catholics,  or 
Presbyterians,  or  Episcopalians,  but  of  organized 
ecclesiastical  systems.  "Not  as  Frenchmen  but 
as  heretics,"  was  the  inscription  which  the  Span- 
iards of  St.  Domingo  placed  above  the  massa- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     215 

cred  Huguenot  garrison.  "  Not  as  Spaniards  but 
as  murderers,"  was  the  retort  of  Dominique  de 
Gourges  when  he  so  adequately  avenged  this  fine 
exploit  of  fanaticism.  So  I  speak  not  of  Chris- 
tianity but  of  ecclesiasticism  interpenetrated  by 
a  lifeless  theology. 

One  may  expend  as  much  mockery  as  he 
pleases  upon  the  pretensions  of  a  theological  eccle- 
siasticism organized  by  a  corporation  of  priests, 
since  it  is  mockery  their  pretensions  deserve ; 
he  may  be  forgiven  his  bitterness  of  speech  by 
those  who  reflect  upon  the  evil  which  it  has 
wrought  in  the  world,  and  remember  those  who 
had  in  their  time  cruel  mockings  and  scourging, 
who  were  stoned,  sawn  asunder,  slain  with  the 
sword,  destitute,  alEicted,  tormented.  One  who 
would  study  the  system  aright  should  survey  the 
cross  which  it  erected  on  Calvary  :  and  he  might 
complete  his  education  in  church  history  by  a 
short  visit  to  the  torture-chamber  at  the  Protest- 
ant Hague,  or  to  the  museum  at  the  Catholic  Nu- 
remberg. But  worse  than  all  these  torturings  was 
the  propagation  of  the  belief  that  it  had  all  to  do 
with  religion,  and  the  invention  of  hell  to  enforce 
it.  Consequently  it  was  a  necessary  postulate 
that  humanity  is  a  massa  perdltionis,  reserved 
for  burning,  and  liable  to  the  pains  of  hell  tem- 


216  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

porarily,  if  not  "  for  ever."  The  necessity  for 
adopting  a  means  of  prevention  is  accentuated, 
and  the  advantage  of  any  given  system  is  thereby 
magnified.  Men  are  not  so  bad  as  this  assump- 
tion would  make  them  out  to  be.  If  God  had 
himself  undertaken  the  search  for  righteous  men 
in  Sodom  instead  of  entrusting  the  matter  to 
the  Patriarch,  the  results  of  the  enquiry  might 
not  have  been  so  disappointing. 

This  spirit  of  persecution  is  to-day  as  insepara- 
ble from  ecclesiasticism  as  ever  it  was.  One  need 
not  be  a  fierce  Erastian  to  believe  that  it  is  only 
a  strong  state  which  can  keep  a  church  from 
resorting  to  physical  force.  The  Baptists  are  the 
only  denomination  of  Christians  which  has  never 
resorted  to  persecution ;  and  the  late  Mr.  Spur- 
geon  used  to  explain  the  anomaly  on  the  ground 
that  they  never  got  the  chance. 

In  September,  1907,  which  is  in  the  twentieth 
century,  the  head  of  the  Catholic  church  issued 
a  syllabus  of  sixty-five  propositions  which  are 
described  as  errors.  He  denounces  as  false  the 
idea  that  the  church  shall  not  pass  judgement  upon 
the  natural  sciences.  He  denounces  as  false  the 
idea  that  scientific  research  has  the  right  to  refute 
the  facts  which  the  church  holds  to  be  undoubted. 
It  is  by  such  conduct  as  this  that  the  ecclesiastics 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     217 

have  bungled  themselves  out  of  every  country  in 
Europe,  including  Scotland.  The  progress  of 
knowledge  will  continue  and  nothing  will  happen 
to  those  who  advance  it,  since  we  have  no  longer 
any  regard  for  the  rack  and  the  stake,  those  two 
instruments  by  which  in  times  past  divine  truth 
was  made  to  prevail. 

II 

All  this  having  been  said,  —  everything,  in 
short,  which  can  be  said  of  this  view  of  the  case, — 
the  matter  is  by  no  means  settled.  Possibly  there 
lurks  in  it  the  fallacy  of  incomplete  statement ; 
and  one  content  with  that  would  justly  lay  himself 
open  to  the  charge  of  being  a  mocker,  a  trifler, 
and  more  than  a  semi-liar.  It  may  be  that  our  wit- 
ness. Cardinal  Newman,  did  not  inform  us  fully. 

Only  the  other  day  a  more  modern  and  greater 
than  Newman  said :  "  Religion  cannot  be  the  cri- 
terion of  scientific  truth :  each  must  be  criticized 
by  its  own  principles."  A  cloud  of  witnesses  over- 
shadows us :  Luther  protesting  that  Jesus  is  his 
own  master,  even  if  Peter  or  Paul  denied  it, 
and  Judas,  Pilate,  or  Herod  affirmed  it ;  Zwingli 
declaring  that  "  faith  does  not  depend  upon  the 
discretion  of  men,  but  has  its  seat  invincibly  in 
the  soul "  ;  Calvin  attesting  that  "  we  must  seek 


218  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

a  ground  for  conviction  in  something  higher  than 
human  reasonings,  opinions,  or  conjectures,"  and 
that  "assurance  has  a  higher  sanction  than  rea- 
son, namely,  the  inward  witness  of  the  spirit " ; 
Lessing  affirming  that  "  religion  has  always  been 
and  still  is  proved  by  its  own  virtue  " ;  and  Pas- 
cal, who  sums  up  all  in  the  inimitable  words,  "  it 
is  the  heart  which  is  the  judge."  In  religion,  as 
in  mathematics,  there  is  no  room  for  testimony  or 
authority.  Each  proves  itself.  That  is  the  com- 
ment of  Auguste  Sabatier.  Amongst  those  whom 
I  have  cited  are  certain  theologians  of  repute, 
Luther,  Calvin,  Pascal.  Possibly  the  matter  is 
worth  investigating  further. 

No  one  would  think  of  accusing  Professor  Mac- 
Bride  of  being  a  theologian  ;  and  yet  he  has  felt 
constrained  to  declare  that  our  relation  to  the 
Great  Power  enormously  transcends  in  impor- 
tance the  structure  of  molecules,  the  causes  of 
radio-activity,  or  even  the  laws  of  heredity,  mat- 
ters which  science  has  taken  for  its  very  own.  The 
best  theological  intellect  has  always  concerned 
itself  with  that  relation,  and  it  has  been  the  keen- 
est which  has  ever  been  applied  to  human  affairs. 
It  realized  that  its  conclusions  were  provisional. 
It  gave  the  best  explanations  it  could  discover, 
and  had  the  courage  to  stand  by  them  as  if  they 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    219 

were  final.  The  great  theologians  had  an  insolu- 
ble problem  to  solve,  and  they  attacked  it  boldly, 
winning  praise  or  blame  according  as  we  consider 
their  failure  or  their  success.  In  all  their  writ- 
ings is  an  undertone  of  lamentation  that  they 
had  failed,  and  a  secret  joy  that  they  could  not 
succeed.  "If  God,"  said  Lessing,  who  was  at 
once  dialectician,  rationalist,  and  mystic,  "were 
to  offer  me  in  one  hand  truth,  and  in  the  other  the 
desire  for  truth,  I  should  say,  keep  the  truth ;  it 
is  not  suited  for  me  ;  leave  to  me  only  the  power 
and  the  desire  to  seek  for  it,  though  I  never  find 
it  wholly  and  absolutely." 

And  this  brings  us  face  to  face  with  Pilate's 
question,  as  it  is  commonly  understood,  though 
I  am  informed  by  an  astute  exegetist  that  the 
question  which  that  Roman  "  district  officer " 
really  did  put  to  those  unscrupulous  Orientals  was 
in  the  contemptuous  form:  What  is  truth — to 
you  ?  What  do  you  know,  or  care,  about  truth  ? 
The  answer  is,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  final 
truth  to  which  we  may  attain.  There  are  many 
separate  truths,  each  one  of  which  is  false  when 
it  stands  in  isolation ;  but  no  man  has  seen  the 
truth  at  any  time  and  lived.  Even  the  message 
of  Jesus  was  a  partial  truth.  The  only  questions 
which  are  worth  solving:  are  those  which  cannot 


220  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

be  solved,  and  men  will  not  soon  abandon  the 
search  for  the  unsearchable  Supreme. 

Even  if  we  were  to  admit  the  amazing  possi- 
bility that  a  man  by  searching  could  find  all 
knowledge,  it  might  not  necessarily  follow  that 
he  would  be  a  religious  man.  Paul  provided  for 
the  contingency  that  one  might  understand  all 
mysteries,  and  he  was  entirely  contemptuous  of 
the  result.  In  reality,  knowledge  has  nothing  to 
do  with  religion  :  it  is  the  intelligence  of  the  heart 
that  judges.  Indeed  it  was  to  the  intellectually 
ignorant  that  St.  Francis  and  Wesley  appealed, 
because,  having  small  intellect,  theology  was  no 
stumbling-block  to  them;  and  these  two  great 
revivers  of  religion  had  themselves  little  more 
theology  than  Jesus  had. 

It  was  in  no  spirit  of  cynicism  that  Kenan 
counselled :  "  Let  us  abandon  the  search  for 
truth ;  we  might  not  like  it  when  we  found  it." 
But  Newman  and  the  pseudo-scientific  theologians 
seized  upon  the  wisdom  of  the  world  and  lost 
their  cause.  Searching  in  wells  for  truth  which 
lies  exposed  upon  the  surface,  they  are  like  the 
Woman  peering  into  the  empty  grave  and  lament- 
ing: "They  have  taken  away  my  Lord,  and  I 
know  not  where  they  have  laid  him  "  ;  whilst  in 
reality  he  was  secure  in  the  hearts  of  men. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     221 

Prove  not;  only  believe,  was  the  watchword 
which  Celsus  gives  as  the  magical  formula  by 
which  the  early  Christians  triumphed.  Paul  in- 
sists continually  upon  the  distinction  between  the 
wisdom  of  the  world  and  the  word  of  God.  His 
demand  is  to  preach  this  word  as  foolishness,  and 
avoid  the  seductions  of  science,  a  warning  which 
on  many  occasions  he  might  well  have  taken  to 
himself.  When  the  world  is  rid  entirely  of  this 
fallacy,  the  spirit  of  religion  will  appeal  to  men  of 
intellect  with  its  full  force.  Then  will  come  a  new 
revival  of  religion  ;  and  it  is  amongst  intellectual 
men  that  its  operation  will  be  most  evident. 

The  business  of  the  theologians  is  a  hard  one. 
The  essence  of  their  systems  lies  in  the  certainty 
that  they  have  the  truth  and  that  their  truth  Is 
essential  to  salvation.  The  lesser  authorities  are 
convinced  that  such  is  the  case ;  the  great  theo- 
logians pretend  to  believe  it,  but  in  reality  they 
do  not.  In  this  there  is  a  distinction  which  may 
help  us  to  an  understanding. 

A  theologian,  like  a  politician,  must  assume  that 
his  system  is  right  and  that  all  other  systems 
are  wrong.  The  essence  of  Jewish  thought  was 
that  salvation  was  to  Israel  alone.  It  was  hateful 
to  them  that  the  promise  could  be  to  any  other. 
They  maintained  this   ground  and  saved  their 


222  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

church,  until  out  of  that  very  church  there  came 
in  the  fulness  of  time  such  as  Jesus  and  Paul. 
They  saved  it  even  against  their  prophets,  who 
were  continually  objecting  to  this  theory  of  ex- 
clusiveness,  that  salvation  followed  in  descent 
from  Abraham.  "Are  ye  not  as  Ethiopians  to 
me  ?  "  was  the  bitter  cry  of  Amos.  "  God  is  able 
of  these  stones  to  raise  up  children,"  was  the 
contemptuous  protest  of  John  the  Baptist  to  Jew- 
ish pretensions.  The  charge  which  they  brought 
against  Jesus  was  blasphemy,  because  he  spoke 
slightingly  of  their  ecclesiastical  organization  ; 
and  the  cause  of  their  life-long  hatred  against 
Paul  was  that  by  his  apostasy  he  had  destroyed 
the  law. 

This  exclusiveness  of  salvation  has  been  a  pos- 
session of  all  theological  systems.  In  that  com- 
pendium of  doctrine  which  was  put  forward  as 
a  confession  of  the  faith  which  was  held  by  the 
church  of  Scotland  at  the  time  of  its  publication, 
one  may  read :  "  Men  not  professing  the  Chris- 
tian religion  cannot  be  saved  in  any  other  way 
whatsoever.''  The  theory  of  another  church  yet  in 
active  existence  is  much  more  narrow,  that  there 
can  be  no  salvation  even  in  a  Christian  church 
which  does  not  possess  an  apostolic  succession  of 
priests.  I  do  not  suppose  that  these  beliefs  are  in 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     223 

reality  held  by  a  very  large  number  of  persons 
in  these  two  churches.  At  any  rate  I  do  not  hold 
the  one ;  and  Dr.  Symonds  informs  me  that  he 
does  not  hold  the  other. 

It  was  because  Peter  "  dissembled"  upon  this 
question  that  Paul,  speaking  as  the  Apostle  and 
not  as  the  Rabbi,  "  withstood  him  to  the  face," 
and  pronounced  that  man  or  angel  accursed  who 
preached  any  other  doctrine  than  that  of  free 
salvation  to  Jew  and  Gentile  alike.  With  our 
humanitarian  notions  we  must  make  some  provi- 
sion for  the  heathen  and  for  persons  who  adhere  to 
other  systems  of  belief  than  our  own.  Paul  saw 
a  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  and  he  gives  us  some 
inkling  of  it  in  his  letter  to  the  Romans.  To  him 
there  was  no  reality  but  God.  All  else  is  illusion. 
In  the  beginning  men  acquired  some  faint  per- 
ception of  the  knowledge  of  God,  "  the  invisible 
things  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are 
made."  But  their  foolish  heart  was  darkened, 
and  professing  themselves  to  be  wise  they  became 
fools,  and  changed  the  glory  of  the  uncorruptible 
God  into  an  image  like  a  man,  and  to  birds,  and 
four-footed  beasts,  and  creeping  things.  As  a 
result  they  fell  into  a  most  deplorable  condi- 
tion, which  Paul  describes  with  uncompromising 
fidelity ;  and,  in  view  of  what  we  know  of  the 


224  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

partial  loveliness  of  domestic  heathen  life,  with 
grotesque  exaggeration.  But  men  are  never  so 
utterly  left  to  themselves  that  they  are  absolutely 
incapable  of  perceiving  the  truth  and  cleaving 
to  that  which  is  good.  The  law  was  revealed  to 
the  Jews,  who  will  be  judged  by  it,  and  either 
justified  or  condemned.  The  heathen  have  a  law 
written  in  their  hearts,  and  they  will  be  judged 
accordingly,  "  their  conscience  also  bearing  wit- 
ness, and  their  thoughts  the  meanwhile  accusing 
or  else  excusing  one  another." 

In  Paul's  first  address  to  the  Galatians  as 
recorded  in  the  Acts  there  is  an  example  of 
the  unconscious  working  of  his  mind  upon  this 
theory  of  exclusive  salvation.  The  audience  was 
a  mixed  one,  composed  of  Jews  and  serious- 
minded  Gentiles.  In  the  outset  he  distinguishes 
his  hearers  as  Men  of  Israel,  and  ye  that  fear  God. 
As  he  proceeds,  he  becomes  still  more  courteous  : 
Men,  brethren,  children  of  the  stock  of  Abraham, 
and  whosoever  among  you  feareth  God,  to  you  is 
the  word  of  this  salvation  sent.  Finally  all  dis- 
tinction between  Jew  and  Gentile  disappears  and 
he  addresses  them  as  Men,  brethren.  And  when, 
long  afterwards,  he  has  occasion  to  write  to  these 
"foolish  Galatians,"  he  makes  the  great  pro- 
nouncement :  For  ye  are  all  the  children  of  God. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    225 

There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek.  Ye  are  all  one 
in  Christ  Jesus. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  say  that  belief  has  nothing 
to  do  with  religion ;  that  religion  is  an  affair  of 
the  emotions,  of  that  part  of  the  nature  which  lies 
below  the  surface  and  beyond  the  range  of  that 
consciousness  which  deals  with  the  common  affairs 
of  life.  Yet  one  must  admit  that  belief  has  some- 
thing to  do  with  conduct,  and  no  one  will  deny 
that  in  some  way  conduct  and  religion  have  some- 
thing to  do  with  each  other.  Even  the  law  courts 
proceed  upon  the  assumption  that  if  a  man  really 
entertains  the  belief  that  he  is  about  to  die,  his 
conduct  will  be  altered  to  such  an  extent  that  he 
will  be  likely  to  tell  the  truth  about  any  proper 
matter  that  may  be  put  to  him.  In  less  extreme 
cases  it  is  assumed  that  he  will  testify  truly  if  he 
believes  that  false  swearing  will  render  him  liable 
to  the  pains  of  hell  for  ever. 

Religion,  in  truth,  is  an  affair  of  the  whole  man, 
and  the  difference  between  the  religious  and  the 
irreligious  man  is  that  the  one  thinks  of  God,  the 
other  is  concerned  with  this  world  alone.  The  es- 
sence of  religion  is  the  conscious  adjustment  of 
conduct  to  the  divine  will.  The  identification  of 
that  will  with  morality  is  the  foundation  of  ethics. 
In  this  lies  the  distinction  between  the  two.  The 


226  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

one  is  the  business  of  the  individual  in  his  own 
life ;  the  other  is  the  business  of  a  professor  in 
his  chair.  A  man  who  reflects  upon  the  matter  at 
all  inevitably  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  he 
is  merely  a  part  of  a  whole  which  lies  outside  of 
the  region  of  his  knowledge.  This  very  reflection 
and  consciousness  implies  a  theory  of  that  which 
lies  beyond,  of  the  future  in  this  life  at  least, 
and  in  normal  cases  of  a  life  which  may  follow 
that,  —  in  a  word,  of  God. 

A  man  who  feels  at  all  feels  himself  to  be  a 
part  of  a  whole  which  lies  beyond  the  realm  of 
his  knowledge.  The  lowest  savage  feels  that,  and 
makes  for  himself  some  kind  of  theory  of  that 
which  lies  beyond.  Such  a  system  of  conceptions 
is  a  theology.  The  feeling  is  a  fact.  Theology  is 
an  explanation  of  it,  but  the  theology  which  is 
ample  for  the  savage  will  not  suffice  for  us.  Our 
feeling  is  finer  and  we  require  a  finer  explanation. 
To  one  who  affirms  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
feeling,  I  can  do  no  better  than  apply  the  Pauline 
argument  contained  in  the  words :  "  thou  fool." 
To  one  who  confesses  that  he  himself  is  insensible 
to  religious  feeling  I  offer  a  new  argument :  "  thou 
beast " ;  for  it  is  in  this  alone  that  a  man  has  his 
chief  preeminence  over  the  beasts  which  perish. 
If  he  perish,  that  is  enough.   If  there  is  some 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    227 

arrangement  by  which  he  may  be  saved  as  by  fire, 
that  also  is  well. 

As  men  grow,  they  outgrow  their  system,  but 
the  human  need  for  a  system  remains.  More  espe- 
cially must  those  feeble  and  imperfectly  developed 
natures  which  constitute  the  bulk  of  humanity 
have  a  theology  and  a  church  to  lean  upon.  Pos- 
sibly those  who  have  eaten  of  the  tree  of  know- 
ledge and  are  become  as  gods  can  do  without. 
Those  who  have  followed  the  recent  controversy 
upon  this  subject  will  be  inclined  to  lay  some  stress 
upon  the  testimony  of  George  Tyrrell.  He  was  an 
immediate  sufferer  from  an  oro^anized  theologrical 
system,  and  yet  he  declared  that  religion  without 
at  least  an  implicit  theology  is  like  a  man  with- 
out a  brain,  a  bundle  of  sentiments,  and  blind 
impulses,  and  senseless  contortions. 

When  Jesus  died  he  left  on  earth  a  few  friends 
who  were  enthusiastic  over  his  teaching  and  were 
devoted  to  his  person.  They  had  faith  in  him  ; 
that  is,  they  entertained  for  him  a  sentiment 
which  may  best  be  described  as  hero-worship.  But 
from  the  scene  of  his  death  they  had  fled  in  con- 
sternation. The  piteous  account  of  the  denial,  and 
the  bitter  weeping  of  the  disciple  when  his  base- 
ness was  revealed  to  him,  is  more  credible  than 
the  comforting  legend  of  the  women  standing  by 


228  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

the  cross  in  the  friendly  company  of  that  dis- 
ciple whom  Jesus  loved  above  all  others. 

In  so  far  as  they  could  judge,  the  theologians 
had  repelled  the  attack  of  Jesus  upon  their  posi- 
tion. They  had  every  reason  to  believe  that  the 
sect  of  the  Nazarene  would  disappear  as  the  sect 
of  the  Baptist  had  disappeared  in  the  chaos  of 
Jewish  aspiration ;  and  in  the  light  of  after-events 
we  cannot  affirm  that  the  expectation  was  without 
warrant.  The  Baptist  had  been  described  as  more 
than  a  prophet,  as  greatest  among  them  that  are 
born  of  a  wcfman.  He,  like  Jesus,  had  set  himself 
up  against  the  organized  nonsense  with  which 
the  Scribes  had  kept  the  people  in  bondage.  He 
demanded  individual  repentance  and  not  priestly 
intercession  for  the  remission  of  sins.  By  this 
direct  approach  to  God  he  made  the  office  of 
the  hierarchy  of  no  effect ;  and  yet  all  the  direct 
result  of  his  work  that  remained  was  a  small  com- 
munity of  pious  Jews,  which  lived  in  asceticism 
for  a  brief  period  and  vanished  into  the  cold  void 
of  history. 

Jewish  Christianity  fared  little  better.  It  never 
obtained  a  footing  in  Asiatic  soil.  The  church  at 
Antioch  was  the  only  one  of  considerable  size  in 
Syria,  and  it  was  largely  Gentile.  The  country 
districts  and  villages  were  unmoved  by  the  new 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     229 

doctrine,  and  the  Christianity  of  Palestine  finally 
perished  in  the  catastrophe  of  Jerusalem.  The 
only  possible  exception  was  the  church  in  Edessa 
in  the  Euphrates  valley,  of  which  Mr.  Burkitt 
writes  so  informingly,  where  an  orthodox  Chris- 
tianity grew  up,  and  exercised  an  influence  —  not 
a  very  good  influence,  it  is  true  —  as  far  as  Eng- 
land, and  as  late  as  the  seventh  century.  But  this 
church  in  its  origin  and  growth  was  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  community  in  Jerusalem,  and  can- 
not be  credited  to  the  activity  of  the  immediate 
disciples  of  Jesus.  Its  claim  to  authority  was  based 
upon  a  plausible  letter  dictated  by  Jesus  to  Han- 
nan,  a  notary,  for  his  employer  Abgar  the  Black, 
as  is  recorded  in  the  "  Doctrine  of  Addai."  This 
letter  was  accepted  as  genuine  for  nearly  five  hun- 
dred years,  when  it  was  branded  as  apocryphal 
by  Gelasius,  that  Bishop  of  Rome  who  strove  to 
heal  the  schism  between  the  eastern  and  western 
churches,  after  he  had  secured  for  his  office  com- 
plete independence  of  emperor  and  council  in 
matters  of  faith.  Yet  the  letter  was  copied  and 
circulated  in  England  for  two  hundred  years 
longer,  and  was  worn  as  a  charm  "  against  light- 
ning and  hail,  and  perils  by  sea  and  by  land,  by 
day  and  by  night,  and  in  dark  places." 

The  literary  treatment  which  this  document 


230  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

received  is  interesting;  and  one  may  speak  plainly 
of  a  letter  which  is  condemned  by  authority, 
who  would  be  barred  from  a  free  handling  of  an 
epistle  contained  within  the  canon.  The  conclu- 
sion puts  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus  the  words,  "  No 
enemy  shall  have  dominion  over  thy  city."  A  cen- 
tury later  the  city  of  Edessa  was  sacked  by  the 
Romans,  and  the  province  in  which  it  was  situated 
was  incorporated  into  the  Empire.  When  Euse- 
bius,  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  came  to 
treat  of  this  letter  which  Jesus  is  alleged  to  have 
written,  he  was  driven  to  one  of  two  conclusions, 
either  that  the  document  was  spurious,  or  that 
Jesus  was  mistaken. 

This  essential  father  of  church  history  adopted 
neither  one  of  these  alternatives.  He  suppressed 
the  damaging  conclusion,  and  accepted  the  let- 
ter as  genuine.  Even  if  we  admit  the  influence 
which  these  Syrian  communities  exercised  over  the 
imagination  of  the  prophet  of  Islam  and  upon  the 
development  of  Mohammedanism,  we  must  also 
admit  that  such  influence  as  they  exercised  was 
Jewish  rather  than  Christian.  Indeed  a  full  ad- 
mission of  this  claim  would  imply  that  Jewish 
Christianity  had  entirely  disappeared  from  Israel. 

The  early  apostles  had  two  main  lines  of  con- 
duct open  to  them.   The  one  was  to  preserve  the 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     231 

entliuslasm  which  was  inspired  by  the  person  of 
Jesus.  The  other  was  to  create  an  organization 
through  which  it  might  be  propagated.  In  effect 
these  two  courses  coincided.  Enthusiasm  unre- 
strained breaks  forth  into  wild  fancy.  Confined, 
it  is  apt  to  precipitate  as  a  stiff  residue  which 
eventually  loses  itself  in  the  wrappings  which 
surround  it.  Their  whole  labour  was  an  attempt 
to  give  form  to  this  enthusiasm,  to  secure  it  here 
and  there  with  a  point  of  intellectual  belief,  and 
by  regulation  to  restrain  it  within  the  bounds  of 
decency  and  order.  That  was  the  single  aim  of 
their  theology,  liturgy,  and  government. 

The  history  of  all  religious  movements  at  their 
inception,  before  they  have  had  time  to  organize 
themselves,  is  one  of  wild  disorder.  Taking  Paul 
at  his  own  word,  when  he  rebukes  the  early 
Christians,  we  can  partially  excuse  the  heathen 
who  looked  upon  them  as  a  company  of  madmen. 
Early  Methodism  is  full  of  occurrences  from 
which  one  would  be  liable  to  draw  a  similar 
deduction.  In  a  book  which  "  The  Spectator  " 
describes  as  "  honest,  accurate,  and  painstaking," 
there  is  an  account  of  a  meeting  of  twenty-five 
thousand  persons,  who  behaved  themselves  in  such 
a  way  that  "  the  noise  was  like  the  roar  of  Niag- 
ara." It  is  just  at  this  point  that  the  theologian 


232  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

comes  upon  the  scene.  Wesley  gave  to  the  Meth- 
odists an  organization  ;  and  if  Paul  had  not  ap- 
peared when  the  hearts  of  men  burned  within 
them,  we  should  now  be  employing  the  words 
which  Anatole  France  in  "Le  Procurateur  de 
Judee  "•  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Pilate :  "  Jesus  ? 
I  do  not  recall  the  name."  The  scepticism  of 
*'  Philopatris  "  would  be  ours  :  "  And  to  me  it 
seems  that  you  have  fallen  asleep  upon  a  white 
rock  in  a  parish  of  dreams  and  have  dreamt  all 
this  in  a  moment  while  it  was  yet  night." 

It  is  easy  for  those  who  are  filled  with  the  spirit 
to  deride  the  humble  labour  of  those  who  would 
confine  it  to  some  relation  with  conduct  in  this 
world.  There  is  no  task  so  thankless  as  the  sup- 
pression of  ecstasy  in  others,  although  it  involves 
self-denial  of  that  luxury  in  the  individual  who 
undertakes  it.  Especially  hard  must  this  repres- 
sion have  been  for  Paul.  He  thanked  God  that 
he  could  speak  with  tongues  more  than  they  all ; 
yet  he  would  rather  speak  five  words  with  his 
understanding  than  ten  thousand  words  in  an  un- 
known tongue.  Certainly  he  was  easily  first  in  his 
capacity  to  see  visions.  Apart  from  the  great  event 
on  the  way  to  Damascus,  he  had  visions  in  the 
supreme  moments  of  his  life.  He  undertook  his 
great  mission  in  response  to  the  cry  of  that  Mace- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     233 

dqnian  whom  he  saw  in  a  vision  at  Troas,  "  Come 
over  and  help  us."  His  second  visit  to  Jerusalem 
was  the  result  of  a  revelation.  He  protests  con- 
tinually that  it  was  not  from  man  that  he  had  re- 
ceived his  message,  that  no  man  had  taught  him, 
and  that  it  was  not  with  flesh  and  blood  he  had 
conferred.  Yet  he  deliberately  makes  light  of 
these  experiences  in  his  splendid  exaltation  of  the 
virtue  of  love  ;  declaring  that,  in  comparison  with 
it,  speaking  with  tongues,  proj^hesying,  and  other 
ecstatic  manifestations  were  nothing  better  than 
the  clanging  of  those  cymbals  which  the  Cor- 
inthians were  accustomed  to  hear  in  the  heathen 
worship.  For  fourteen  years  he  was  without  the 
spiritual  elevation  to  the  third  heaven  which  he 
had  once  before  experienced  ;  and  yet  those  were 
the  years  in  which  he  strove  with  sane,  sober,  and 
serious  thought,  with  clear,  decisive  utterance, 
with  manly  labour  and  heroic  courage,  to  develop 
the  character  of  his  converts  and  organize  them 
into  a  community  which  had  some  semblance  to 
a  well-ordered  church. 

Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  Christianity  has  been 
preserved  to  us  by  the  theological  genius  of  Paul 
and  of  his  companions,  many  of  whom  are  un- 
known even  as  to  their  names.  Evidence  of  their 
skill  and  their  art  lies  on  every  page  of  their 


234  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

writings.  One  example  will  serve  to  illustrate 
tiieir  capacity  for  dealing  with  an  exegetical  ne- 
cessity, not  that  it  is  the  best,  but  because  it  is 
best  known.  The  community  of  Christians  was 
without  any  body  of  doctrine,  without  organiza- 
tion, without  a  liturgy  even,  excepting  the  form 
of  prayer  which  Jesus  is  reported  to  have  taught 
to  his  disciples.  AYe  cannot  too  often  remind  our- 
selves of  that  warning  which  was  addressed  by 
Bishop  Selborne  to  the  divines  who  had  assem- 
bled at  Westminster  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  for 
all  time  the  true  confession  of  faith,  that  the 
Scriptures  were  not  written  in  English  for  our 
specific  requirements. 

The  words  of  Jesus  are  at  best  a  translation 
from  the  language  which  he  employed,  and  the 
translator,  in  attempting  to  convey  his  meaning, 
would  be  influenced  unconsciously  by  his  own 
predilections  and  consciously  by  the  needs  of  the 
case.  Luke  in  writing  his  form  of  this  prayer 
evidently  had  in  mind  the  manna  with  which  the 
children  of  Israel  were  fed,  and  he  translated 
food  as  "  daily  bread "  to  imply  a  eucharistic 
function.  This  prayer  in  the  earliest  liturgy  was 
used  morning,  noon,  and  night.  At  night  there 
was  no  necessity  of  praying  for  the  bread  of  the 
day  which  was  already  gone,  and  the  form  was 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     235 

enlarged  to  include  the  bread  which  would  be 
required  for  to-morrow,  and  day  by  day  after 
that.  With  the  tendency  of  all  religions  to  dema- 
terialize  common  things,  this  to-morrow  was  pro- 
jected into  the  future,  and  the  food  became  a 
supernatural  bread.  In  time  a  section  of  the 
church  abandoned  the  analogy  with  manna,  and 
in  the  desire  to  associate  Christianity  with  at 
least  the  forms  of  Judaism,  substituted  for  it  an 
analogy  with  the  shew-bread  which  was  always 
exposed  to  view ;  and  so  the  phrase  "  continual 
bread  "  was  born. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  same  desire  and  of 
that  passionate  longing  for  the  return  of  the 
Messiah,  the  expression  contained  in  the  original 
words,  as  they  probably  stood,  "  Deliver  us  from 
evil,  for  this  is  thy  Kingdom,"  was  transformed 
into  "  Thy  Kingdom  come."  The  Jewish  doxo- 
logy  was  added,  and  the  finished  exegetical  pro- 
duct was  substituted  in  the  Christian  service  for 
the  "  Eighteen  Prayer  "  of  the  synagogues.  This 
was  followed  by  a  reading  of  Scripture,  by  a  ser- 
mon, and  by  a  concluding  prayer,  precisely  as 
was  the  custom  amongst  the  Jews.  In  the  church 
of  Scotland  to  this  day  an  order  of  service  is 
observed  at  every  diet  of  worship  which  differs 
but  slightly  from  this,  —  a  matter  upon  which 


236  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

happily  I  am  capable  of  offering  expert  evidence  ; 
and  I  am  informed  that  a  somewhat  similar  prac- 
tice prevails  in  all  churches  of  the  Dissent  ex- 
cepting in  the  Church  of  England. 

Other  essentially  Jewish  observances  were 
added,  with  slight  alteration,  and  so  an  order  of 
service  was  created.  Fasting  was  practised  on 
Wednesdays  and  Fridays  instead  of,  as  previ- 
ously, on  Mondays  and  Thursdays,  "  so  as  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  hypocrites  "  ;  but  it  would 
appear  that  abstinence  from  food  did  not  imply 
humiliation  in  the  sight  of  God.  The  device  was 
employed  rather  for  the  physiological  reason  that 
hunger  is  a  quickener  of  the  senses,  and  makes 
them  more  receptive  of  any  revelation  which  is 
about  to  be  vouchsafed.  No  price  was  too  great 
to  pay  for  this  precious  gift.  It  was  a  sign  of  the 
spirit,  and  conferred  great  authority  upon  the 
possessor.  The  contrary  practice  was  also  em- 
ployed as  soon  as  it  was  discovered  that  a  surfeit 
of  food  and  drink  would  free  the  mind  from  self- 
control,  and  allow  the  spirit  to  enter  in  and 
assume  full  possession.  A  prophet  of  the  Greek 
church  more  recently  attained  to  an  extreme 
degree  of  ecstasy  by  this  method.  When  he  de- 
sired a  revelation  he  would  break  the  large  bones 
of  a  dead  bear  with  a  heavy  club,  and  extract  the 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     237 

marrow.  After  eating  freely  of  the  delicacy,  he 
would  lie  down  to  sleep,  and  when  he  arose  he 
would  report  that  he  had  seen  marvellous  things. 

When  a  man  protests  that  he  has  had  a  reve- 
lation it  is  easy  to  contradict  him ;  it  is  hard  to 
disprove  his  allegations,  as  the  more  sober-minded 
of  the  apostles  were  not  slow  to  discover.  Itin- 
erant preachers  were  coming  into  the  scattered 
communities,  appealing  for  support  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  possessed  by  the  spirit,  and  offer- 
ing these  revelations  as  warrant  of  authority. 
These  wanderers  must  be  kept  in  order  by  the 
"president,"  as  the  overseer  of  the  meeting  is 
described  by  Paul  in  his  earlier  letters.  It  was 
his  business  to  provide  a  place  of  assembly,  to 
regulate  the  service,  and  to  take  charge  of  any 
gifts  which  might  be  made  for  distribution 
amongst  the  poor.  Nothing  could  be  more  natural 
and  simple ;  but  the  arrangement  was  inefficient, 
since  these  wandering  teachers  and  prophets  were 
yet  free  to  expound  the  word  according  to  their 
own  interpretation,  and  appealing  to  the  people 
set  the  authority  of  the  overseer  at  defiance. 

A  closer  supervision  was  necessary,  and  before 
his  death  Paul  was  writing  to  the  Philippians 
with  entire  approval  of  the  two  orders  of  over- 
seers  which  had  grown   up  —  the  bishops   and 


238  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

the  deacons  —  amongst  the  saints.  As  yet  there 
was  no  election  of  these  officials.  They  took 
their  place  by  virtue  of  a  natural  endowment  for 
keeping  order.  But  at  the  time  when  the  Acts 
was  written,  these  officers  had  become  organized 
into  presbyteral  colleges,  with  presidents  who 
bore  the  titles  indifferently  of  overseers,  shep- 
herds, leaders,  elders,  with  a  subsidiary  class  of 
ministers  or  helpers,  whose  functions  were  dis- 
ciplinary and  social  rather  than  spiritual  and 
hortative.  The  teachers  were  there  for  that  pur- 
pose. 

But  eventually  the  overseer  had  a  wider  diver- 
sity of  duties.  A  corresponding  range  of  qualifi- 
cations was  demanded  of  him,  as  is  recorded  in 
the  first  letter  to  Timothy.  He  must  be  a  man  of 
blameless  domestic  life,  exercising  a  good  disci- 
pline at  home,  hospitable,  and  of  good  report.  In 
addition  to  these  virtues  he  must  be  apt  to  teach. 
So  important  a  function  could  no  longer  be  left 
in  the  hands  of  irresponsible  persons.  The  apos- 
tolic tradition  of  sound  doctrine  must  be  main- 
tained by  due  authority  in  face  of  the  rising  power 
of  Gnosticism.  The  office  of  the  bishop  is  mag- 
nified, and,  if  he  teach  in  addition  to  his  other 
duties,  he  is  to  have  a  double  reward.  But  there 
must  be  some   guarantee   that  his   teaching  is 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     239 

sound,  and  that  can  be  assured  only  by  assigning 
to  him  the  possession  of  the  spirit,  "  through  tho 
laying  on  of  hands."  When  Paul  speaks  of  a  gift 
it  is  this  which  he  means,  and  the  "  good  de- 
posit "  remains,  not  with  heretical  teachers,  not 
even  with  the  congregation,  but  with  the  officials. 
This  division  into  a  laity  and  a  clergy,  with  vary- 
ing degrees  of  dignity,  was  helped  by  a  remem- 
brance of  the  clear  distinction  between  the  priest- 
hood and  the  people  in  the  Jewish  system ;  and 
the  idea  of  an  apostolic  succession  was  familiar 
to  minds  which  were  saturated  with  the  preroga- 
tives of  the  House  of  Aaron. 

There  is  some  evidence,  however,  that  the 
change  from  the  old  simplicity  and  freedom  of 
service  to  a  fixed  organization  and  a  paid  episco- 
pate was  not  received  with  complete  acquiescence 
by  the  people,  or  even  by  so  staunch  an  upholder 
of  institutions  as  the  writer  of  the  Acts.  To 
him  the  itinerant  preachers  wei-e  grievous  wolves ; 
the  bishops  should  avoid  their  practices,  and 
rather  follow  the  example  of  Paul,  who  laboured 
for  his  living  at  the  humble  occupation  of  tent- 
making.  The  itinerants,  as  we  may  readily  sur- 
mise, were  not  wholly  submissive  to  the  new  order. 
Indeed  there  is  specific  evidence  in  the  bitter 
cry  of  that  elder  who  indites  to  Gaius  the  Third 


240  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

Epistle  of  John  :  "  I  wrote  unto  the  church  :  but 
Diotrephes,  who  loveth  to  have  the  preeminence, 
receiveth  us  not.  Wherefore,  if  I  come,  I  will 
remember  his  deeds  which  he  doeth,  prating 
against  us  with  malicious  words :  and  not  content 
therewith,  neither  doth  he  himself  receive  the 
brethren,  and  forbiddeth  them  that  would,  and 
casteth  them  out  of  the  church." 

These  itinerant  preachers  indulged  in  fanatical 
insubordination.  Elders  required  to  be  warned 
against  drunkenness,  coarseness,  and  impurity  in 
their  own  households.  Indeed  some  proselytes 
who  had  been  made  bishops  "  fell  into  the  con- 
demnation of  the  devil."  The  young  women  dis- 
played a  love  of  dress  and  finery.  They  were 
notorious  gossips,  and  Titus  felt  bound  to  warn 
the  older  women  against  the  vice  of  drink.  He 
implied,  too,  that  the  excellent  virtue  of  chas- 
tity did  not  in  itself  atone  for  the  absence  of  all 
others.  St.  James  devotes  a  whole  epistle  to  the 
rich  Christians  who  blaspheme  the  name,  doing 
violence  to  the  poorer  brethren,  dragging  them 
before  the  tribunals,  and  keeping  back  the  wages 
of  the  labourers.  Christian  slaves  robbed  their 
masters,  and  amongst  them  there  was  not  even 
the  most  rudimentary  morality.  Documents  such 
as  the  Epistle  of  James  and  the  "  Shepherd  of 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    241 

Hermas  "  give  one  a  terrible  idea  of  the  moral  and 
religious  level  of  many  congregations.  It  was  as  if 
the  gospel  had  lost  its  power  through  its  alliance 
with  the  world. 

Order  was  restored,  and  none  too  soon.  In  vain 
the  people  had  been  warned  that  "  not  everyone 
who  speaks  in  ecstasy  is  a  prophet,  but  only  he 
who  at  the  same  time  walketh  in  the  way  of  the 
Lord."  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them  ;  by 
his  deeds  shall  the  true  prophet  be  distinguished 
from  the  false,  they  were  told ;  and  they  were 
recommended  to  test  the  man  who  claimed  to 
have  the  spirit,  by  his  life ;  these  were  the  false 
prophets  that  came  in  sheep's  clothing,  creeping 
into  houses,  and  captivating  the  women.  They 
had  converted  the  teaching  of  Jesus  into  sophis- 
try, and  made  of  his  great  works  a  system  of 
magic.  Even  during  the  lifetime  of  Paul,  the 
Lord's  Supper  had  been  transformed  into  a  sense- 
less orgy.  At  Corinth,  as  he  tells  us,  the  rich 
would  not  wait  for  the  slaves  and  the  poor.  To 
the  sin  of  pride  they  added  the  vice  of  gluttony, 
with  the  result  that  the  poor  went  away  "  hungry 
and  weak,"  whilst  the  rich  remained  in  a  drunken 
stupor. 

Most  prophets  have  always  been  false  prophets, 
speaking  great  swelling  words  of  vanity,  sporting 


242  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

themselves  with  their  own  deceivings,  and  with 
feigned  words  making  merchandise  of  the  people. 
It  is  the  desire  of  the  people  that  their  prophets 
shall  smooth  their  tongues  and  say,  He  saith. 
They  say  to  their  seers,  See  not ;  and  to  the  pro- 
phets. Prophesy  not  unto  us  right  things,  but 
smooth  things,  deceits  and  words  which  are 
smoother  than  butter.  In  the  traditional  home 
of  prophecy,  Ahab  found  four  hundred  false 
prophets  in  one  place  on  the  same  day,  whom  he 
might  much  better  have  put  to  death. 

The  prophet  and  the  priest  are  inevitable  ene- 
mies ;  and  yet,  without  the  priest  the  prophet 
ends  as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  It  is 
the  strangest  paradox  of  history  that  religion 
loses  itself  without  the  church,  and  its  fineness  is 
always  destroyed  within.  The  priest  slays  the 
prophet  and  betrays  the  church ;  yet  he  maintains 
its  existence  until  the  saint  is  ready  to  redeem  it. 
When  religion  is  driven  from  the  hearts  of  men, 
its  only  refuge  is  the  church  until  the  time  comes, 
as  it  inevitably  does,  for  it  to  burst  forth  like  a 
water-spring  long  pent  up.  When  we  realize  that 
it  is  one  function  of  the  priest  to  slay  the  prophet, 
we  can  regard  with  more  equanimity  the  methods 
which  he  adopts. 

Occasionally  a  mistake  is  made,  but  the  priests 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     243 

are  always  willing  to  make  what  amends  they  can 
by  building  a  handsome  sepulchre. 

ni 

A  criticism  which  is  content  with  an  exposition 
of  the  polemical  force  and  apologetic  direction  of 
the  Gospels  and  Epistles  proceeds  from  an  igno- 
rant, perverse,  and  unbelieving  mind.  Polemic 
and  apologetic  loom  large  in  the  writings  of  Paul, 
because  these  were  the  things  with  which  he  was 
immediately  concerned.  He  was  not  writing  for 
us ;  still  less  did  he  intend  that  his  letters  should 
form  the  chapters  of  a  book.  He  was  merely 
dealing  in  a  summary  way  with  particular  cases 
which  had  arisen,  and  all  that  has  come  down 
to  us  of  his  writings  can  be  contained  in  twenty 
or  thirty  moderate-sized  pages  of  print.  To  be 
strictly  accurate,  he  did  not  write  :  he  merely  dic- 
tated his  letters,  excepting  that  to  the  Galatians, 
when  in  anxiety  and  anger  he  seized  the  pen,  and 
issued  a  genuine  product  of  his  turbulent  mind  ; 
in  the  end,  however,  apologizing  so  winsomely  for 
the  large  characters  which  he  was  obliged  to  em- 
ploy, after  the  manner  of  a  child  or  one  half-blind. 
This  South  Galatian  church  was  composed  of 
Jews,  proselytes,  and  Gentiles,  and  all  were  very 
dear  to  him.    If  it  had  been  possible,  they  would 


244  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

have  plucked  out  their  own  eyes  and  given  them 
to  him.  Yet  after  he  had  left,  there  was  a  deliberate 
attempt  to  reinstate  Jewish  ideas  and  practices  in 
his  church.  He  was  traduced  as  one  who  was  no 
Apostle,  who  had  received  no  authority,  as  one 
who  was  setting  aside  the  laws  of  God  in  showing 
to  the  people  a  shorter  way,  and  by  declaring 
the  futility  of  Jewish  rites  and  ordinances.  He 
defends  himself  with  a  fine  boldness,  arguing, 
appealing,  even  cursing  the  disciples  who  had 
walked  with  Jesus.  Finally,  he  sums  up  his  mes- 
sage, which  is  as  valid  for  us  as  for  the  Galatians, 
that  the  essence  of  religion  rests  in  the  individual 
life,  and  not  in  rite  or  ceremonial. 

The  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians  deals  with 
an  entirely  different  state  of  affairs.  The  commu- 
nity which  Paul  had  founded  three  years  before 
became  engaged  in  difficulties  and  wrote  to  him. 
Factions  had  arisen.  The  Jews  were  at  work 
again,  protesting  that  a  Pagan  must  become  a 
Jew  on  his  way  to  Christianity.  The  Greeks  hav- 
ing observed  that  no  ill  effects  followed  casting 
off  the  Levitical  law,  cast  off  the  moral  law  as 
well.  A  third  party  was  engaged  in  the  vain  at- 
tempt to  rationalize  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  with 
Greek  philosophy;  and  lastly  there  were  those 
who  disdained  all  teaching,  and  strove  for  an  im- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     245 

mediate  and  mystical  union  with  God,  To  these 
warring  factions  Paul  writes  that  there  is  only- 
one  basis  of  agreement,  loyalty  to  Jesus,  and 
cooperation  in  his  service. 

The  immediate  motive  for  writing  the  Second 
Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  extremely  simple. 
It  was  reported  commonly  that  there  was  in  the 
church  a  most  infamous  fellow,  who  was  guilty  of 
immorality  so  gross  that  it  was  not  even  named 
amongst  the  Gentiles.  Paul  in  his  first  letter 
adjured  them  in  the  name  and  by  the  power  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  to  deliver  him  unto  Satan  for 
the  destruction  of  his  flesh.  Instead  of  adopting 
so  radical  a  measure,  the  church-meeting  merely 
decided  to  reprimand  this  wicked  person ;  and  it 
would  even  appear  that  the  decision  was  not  an 
unanimous  one.  Paul  writes  to  signify  his  assent, 
and  urges  them  to  comfort  the  erring  brother  lest 
perhaps  he  should  be  swallowed  up  with  overmuch 
sorrow.  At  the  same  time  he  takes  occasion  to  say 
some  plain  things  about  his  former  friends  who 
had  forged  letters  against  him. 

The  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians  and  to  the  Co- 
lossians  are  pamphlets  against  Gnosticism,  and 
are  more  critical  of  that  than  expository  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  letter  to  Philemon  is  a  short  note 
about  a  slave-boy.  The  Philippians  had  sent  to 


246  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

the  Apostle,  who  was  then  a  prisoner  at  Eome, 
certain  articles  for  his  comfort,  and  he  acknow- 
ledged the  gift  in  a  letter  of  thanks,  —  a  letter, 
it  may  be  added,  the  like  of  which  for  loveliness, 
poignancy,  richness,  and  grace,  never  issued  from 
another  heart. 

The  doctrine  of  Paul  as  set  forth  in  these  let- 
ters to  the  Romans,  the  Galatians,  the  Corinth- 
ians, the  Ephesians,  the  Philippians,  —  not  to 
mention  the  short  note  to  Philemon,  which  best 
of  all  illustrates  the  humanity,  the  humour  even 
of  the  Apostle,  for  it  is  in  a  distinctly  humorous 
vein  that  he  induces  the  Christian  to  receive  back 
his  slave-boy  who  has  run  away,  —  is  indefinite 
and  obscure,  because  it  was  indefinite  and  ob- 
scure in  his  own  mind ;  it  is  only  in  the  letters 
which  were  written  by  his  followers  in  amplifi- 
cation of  his  doctrine  that  the  full  results  are 
observed ;  and  in  so  far  as  they  are  extreme,  they 
are  baneful. 

Paul  was  a  man  of  plain  speech.  He  rebuked 
sin  wherever  he  found  it,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
name  and  describe  the  sins  which  he  rebuked.  He 
devotes  a  chapter  to  a  catalogue  of  the  vices  which 
were  common  in  Rome,  amongst  the  heathen  ;  and 
he  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  about  the  practices  which 
were  prevalent  in  the  church  at  Corinth,  —  men 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     247 

and  women  living,  or  attempting  to  live,  in  utter 
defiance  of  the  claims  of  nature,  and  violating  all 
the  principles  of  consanguinity.  As  a  result  we 
are  inclined  to  think  of  these  practices  as  being 
the  rule  rather  than  the  occasional  exception,  and 
we  are  blind  to  the  virtues  which  did  blossom  in 
that  heathen  environment. 

Above  all  we  fail  to  understand  that  nearly 
every  individual  in  the  community  did  possess  a 
personal  experience  of  living  in  an  especial  rela- 
tion with  God,  which  was  much  more  precious  than 
that  which  came  from  a  punctilious  observance  of 
the  formal  commands  of  Jesus.  There  was  an  inner 
union  in  the  spirit  of  God,  and  the  whole  life 
was  pervaded  by  that  spirit  whose  fruit  was  love, 
joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  goodness, 
faith,  meekness,  temperance.  In  short,  this  spirit 
proved  itself  not  by  ecstasies,  prophesying,  and 
speaking  with  tongues,  but  by  holiness  and  love, 
leading  a  life  of  purity  in  brotherly  fellowship.  To 
do  the  will  of  God  and  present  themselves  blame- 
less was  the  first  charge  upon  the  members  of  the 
Christian  community.  In  this  was  embraced  the 
whole  range  of  moral  action.  Whatsoever  things 
are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatso- 
ever things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure, 
whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things 


248  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

are  of  good  report,  —  these  were  the  things  upon 
which  they  were  to  think,  because  there  was  vir- 
tue in  them,  and  praise  to  those  who  made  them 
their  own.  Above  all,  the  Christian  converts  were 
to  shine  as  lights  in  the  world,  blameless  and 
harmless  in  the  midst  of  a  perverse  and  rebellious 
generation.  They  were  to  be  unspotted  from  the 
world,  holy  as  God  was  holy,  pure  as  Jesus  was, 
and  as  temples  of  the  spirit  of  God  they  were 
to  keep  their  bodies  a  fit  dwelling-place  for  that 
spirit.  Morality  was  not  an  abstract  quality,  but 
a  goal  to  be  attained  at  the  cost  of  much  labour 
and  sweat. 

If  the  Jews  were  to  be  refuted,  It  must  be  out 
of  their  own  mouths,  and  Paul  appealed  to  their 
writings.  In  them  he  discovered  weapons  for  an 
attack  upon  the  fundamental  position  of  the  Jew- 
ish religion.  The  Hebrew  demand :  By  what  means 
shall  a  man  be  justified  ?  is  in  reality  a  less  ecs- 
tatic form  of  the  Christian  cry :  What  must  I 
do  to  be  saved  ?  Justification  to  Paul,  as  well  as 
to  the  Jews,  was  a  simple  realit}'-,  and  not,  as  it 
has  become  to  us  by  reason  of  much  exposition,  an 
unintelligible  formula.  The  word  merely  means 
to  declare  innocent,  the  exact  opposite  of  to  de- 
clare guilty.  God  is  Imagined  as  keeping  a  book 
in  which  every  man  has  an  account,  with  his  good 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     249 

deeds  recorded  on  one  side  and  the  bad  on  the 
other.  As  each  act  is  performed,  judgement  is 
passed  upon  it  whether  it  be  good  or  evil,  and  it 
is  written  down  accordingly ;  but  the  final  sum- 
ming up  is  postponed  till  the  last  day,  when  the 
book  of  life  will  be  opened,  and  the  dead  judged 
out  of  those  things  which  were  written  according 
to  their  works.  There  are  varying  accounts  of  this 
system  of  book-keeping;  but  in  the  main  they 
agree  that  something  will  happen  to  those  who 
are  on  the  wrong  side.  The  extreme  view  that 
they  will  be  cast  into  a  lake  of  fire  is  a  late  and 
picturesque  invention. 

The  Jewish  answer  was  that  a  man  is  justified 
if  he  keeps  the  law ;  Paul  declared  that  a  man  is 
justified  by  faith.  That  was  his  great  doctrine,  that 
justification  by  faith  took  the  place  of  justification 
by  the  law,  in  virtue  of  a  certain  event  which  had 
recently  happened,  namely  the  death  of  Jesus.  But 
Paul  was  obliged,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing, 
thought  he  was  obliged,  to  find  authority  for  this 
doctrine  in  the  Hebrew  books.  He  found  the  war- 
rant he  required  in  the  saying  of  a  minor  prophet : 
"The  just  shall  live  by  faith";  and  in  Genesis: 
"  Abram  believed  and  it  was  counted  to  him  for 
righteousness."  This  was  a  daring  attempt  to  fore- 
stall the  law  by  four  hundred  and  thirty  years,  — 


250  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

a  length  of  time  which  was  believed  to  have  elapsed 
between  the  death  of  the  Patriarch  and  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  code.  When  the  Rabbis  pro- 
tested that  the  exegesis  of  Paul  was  fallacious,  he 
made  the  obvious  retort,  that  the  "  veil  of  Moses 
lay  upon  their  hearts,"  and  obscured  from  them 
the  real  meaning  of  what  they  had  read. 

Eventually  the  term  came  to  mean  forgiveness ; 
and  the  new  idea  which  Paul  introduced  was  that 
this  forgiveness  took  place  upon  entrance  into  the 
Christian  community,  here  and  now,  and  was  not 
dependent  upon  an  uncertain  award  in  the  indefi- 
nite future.  The  transaction  was  an  act  of  grace 
on  the  part  of  God.  The  Jew  was  justified  because 
his  conduct  was  above  the  average.  The  Christian 
was  justified  because  he  was  forgiven,  no  matter 
what  his  conduct  might  have  been.  But  he  was 
justified  by  reason  of  his  faith  in  Jesus;  namely, 
his  belief  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  that  he  died, 
and  rose  again.  He  was  justified  in  virtue  of  his 
belief  in  the  creed  of  the  new  church  rather  than 
of  his  practice  of  the  observances  of  the  old  which 
was  now  become  the  synagogue  of  Satan.  Faith, 
even  in  Paul's  mind,  became  not  an  absolute 
trust  in  God's  mercy,  but  an  acceptation  of  the 
fact  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead.  Instead  of 
the  synagogue  the  Apostle  supplied  a  church,  and 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    251 

inevitably  obscured  the  light  of  Jesus,  which  re- 
vealed to  men  that  God  is  our  Father.  The  next 
business  was  to  attack  the  Jews  on  the  practical 
side,  that  is,  the  performance  of  sacrificial  rites. 

The  theory  of  the  sacrifice  is  the  most  compli- 
cated in  all  theology.  It  aims  to  give  a  consistent 
account  of  religious  practice,  throughout  the  whole 
experience  of  the  race.  At  the  one  extreme  we 
may  observe  the  figure  of  the  aged  Patriarch,  the 
wood  laid  in  order  upon  the  altar,  his  son  bound 
thereon,  the  knife  uplifted  for  the  sacrifice,  and 
the  ram  caught  in  a  thicket  by  his  horns  to  insti- 
tute the  vicarious  idea.  At  the  other  extreme,  as 
one  may  witness  any  Sabbath  morning,  is  the 
minister  of  a  country  congregation,  standing  in 
the  midst,  with  the  full  glare  of  the  sun  upon  the 
whitened  walls,  as  with  closed  eyes  and  open 
mouth  he  offers  up  the  sacrifice  of  prayer.  Be- 
tween the  two  extremes  is  the  priest  who  lifts 
up  the  Mass  which  by  some  divine  thaumaturgy 
has  been  transmuted  into  flesh  and  blood;  near 
to  him  is  the  man  who  calls  himself  a  priest,  and 
offers  up  supersubstantial  bread.  In  the  heathen 
and  Hebrew  performance  of  the  rite  something 
happened  to  the  victim.  He  was  slain  and  the 
smoke  of  his  burning  ascended  a  certain  way  up 
to  heaven.  In  the  Catholic  church  it  is  believed 


252  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

that  something  happens,  in  proof  of  which  the 
altar  is  censed  to  remove  the  odour  which  it  is 
assumed  has  been  created  in  the  process.  In  one 
division  of  the  Protestant  church  it  is  pretended 
that  something  happens ;  in  others  there  is  a  frank 
abandonment  of  all  pretence,  without  abandon- 
ment, save  in  the  case  of  the  Society  of  Friends, 
of  a  practice  which  is  merely  ceremonial  and  per- 
functory. 

All  systems  of  religion  begin  with  the  senti- 
ment of  fear,  —  fear  of  those  mysterious  powers 
which  employ  the  wind,  the  sea,  and  the  light- 
ning as  their  weapons  against  a  puny  and  helpless 
race  of  men.  If  there  is  a  moment  of  sunshine 
and  calm,  it  is  only  a  temporary  cessation  of  the 
torment.  Humanity  is  a  Caliban  in  Prospero's 
power.  No  price  is  too  great  to  offer  for  relief, — 
the  choicest  of  the  flock,  the  first  fruits  of  the 
earth  ;  and,  if  these  will  not  suffice,  that  most  pre- 
cious of  all  offerings,  the  eldest  born  of  the  family. 
Sacrifice  was  the  expression  of  fear,  and  in  the 
end  came  to  mean  religion.  As  men  gained  experi- 
ence of  life  their  fear  diminished,  and  their  sacri- 
fices became  less  gross.  Traces  of  this  f  earf  ulness 
still  exist  in  the  most  unexpected  places.  When 
we  pray, "  Hallowed  be  thy  name,"  we  are  merely 
assenting  to  the  command,  "  Thou  shalt  not  take 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     253 

the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain  " ;  con- 
forming, in  some  degree,  with  the  Jewish  custom 
of  naming  the  holy  name  not  more  than  once  a 
year,  and  with  the  heathen  custom  of  refraining 
entirely  from  mention  of  the  household  gods. 
That  is  the  fundamental  objection  to  what  is  now 
technically  known  as  profanity. 

An  increased  perception  of  the  heinousness  of 
sin  comes  in  the  progress  of  the  moral  develop- 
ment of  the  race.  To  the  wandering  Israelites  it 
was  an  easy  matter  to  rid  themselves  of  this 
burden  under  which  humanity  lies.  They  cast  it 
upon  the  back  of  a  goat  and  drove  the  beast  into 
the  wilderness.  This  trivial  device  might  do  very 
well  for  a  simple-minded,  pastoral  people.  It  was 
too  transparent  for  intelligent  Hebrews  in  the 
first  century.  Not  aU  the  blood  of  beasts  on  Jew- 
ish or  Hellenic  altars  slain  could  take  away  the 
guilt  of  sin.  A  better  means  was  needed  in  Paul's 
time,  even  the  blood  of  Jesus,  the  lamb  without 
spot  or  blemish,  though  it  is  only  comparatively 
late  that  the  efficacy  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  is  in- 
sisted on.  The  three  earlier  Gospels  make  no 
mention  of  any  blood  being  shed  at  his  death.  It 
is  only  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  that  the  want  is  sup- 
plied by  a  relation  of  the  incident  of  the  spear- 
thrust.   To  us  the  idea  is  repugnant  that  sin  can 


254  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

be  atoned  for  by  sacrifice.  We  revert  rather  to 
the  view  of  Isaiah,  that  not  sacrifice  is  required, 
nor  the  blood  of  goats,  but  mercy,  loving-kind- 
ness, and  righteousness. 

Paul  did  not  fail  to  see  that  he  vitiated  his 
own  theory  of  the  absolute  and  only  efficacy  of 
the  sacrifice  of  Jesus,  by  affirming  that  salvation 
was  accessible  on  other  terms  before  that  event 
had  occurred.  This  was  remedied  by  nothing  less 
than  conveying  the  message  to  the  dead.  Descent 
into  the  underworld  presented  no  great  difficulty. 
Moses,  Samuel,  and  all  the  prophets  had  de- 
scended into  Hades.  They  were  followed  by  the 
apostles  and  by  Jesus  himself,  as  any  one  may 
discover  who  has  the  Christian  creed  in  his  hand. 
But  there  was  a  specific  reason  for  this  later  incur- 
sion, namely,  that  they  might  preach  to  those  who 
had  died  and  bestow  upon  them  the  means  of  salva- 
tion which  were  available  for  the  living.  Paul  had 
demonstrated  that  all  had  sinned,  and  that  death 
had  passed  upon  all.  For  this  condition  of  uni- 
versal death  the  death  of  Jesus  was  the  universal 
remedy.  It  did  seem  hard  that  those  who  had  died 
before  the  fulness  of  time,  through  no  fault  of 
theirs,  inasmuch  as  they  had  not  created  them- 
selves, should  continue  in  death  or,  worse  still,  in 
torment.   Against  this  contingency  many  reme- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     255 

dies  were  devised.  The  living  were  baptized  for 
the  dead,  so  that  the  regenerating  effect  of  bap- 
tism might  be  imputed  retroactively  to  them.  But, 
best  of  all,  the  means  of  grace  were  borne  to  them 
by  Jesus  and  his  disciples.  It  was  a  comfortable 
doctrine. 

There  was  a  problem  harder  still,  which  these 
courageous  men  were  obliged  to  face.  It  con- 
cerned the  Christian  converts  and  not  the  Jews, 
Jesus,  and  Paul  too,  had  a  theory  that  life  in  this 
world,  even  the  world  itself,  would  not  long  en- 
dure. They  were  nourished  upon  the  belief  that 
the  fashion  of  this  world  would  soon  pass  away. 
The  sun  would  be  turned  to  darkness  and  the 
moon  to  blood.  The  stars  would  fall.  The  heav- 
ens would  vanish  with  a  great  noise.  The  ele- 
ments would  melt  with  a  fervent  heat.  It  was  a 
later  conception  that  there  would  be  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth,  that  the  sign  of  the  cross  should 
appear  in  the  air,  and  that  Jesus  would  make  his 
advent  borne  up  by  the  clouds.  Paul  was  firmly 
convinced  that  these  important  events  would  take 
place  during  the  lifetime  of  some  of  those  who 
heard  his  voice.  They  would  not  die,  but  they 
would  be  changed.  The  dead  would  be  raised 
incorruptible,  and  death  swallowed  up  in  victory. 

In  the  mind  of  Jesus  also  this  coming  of  the 


256  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

kingdom  was  so  important  in  the  early  part  of 
his  ministry  that  the  affairs  of  this  world  found 
little  place.  If,  as  he  promised,  certain  of  his  dis- 
ciples should  not  taste  death  until  they  had  seen 
the  kingdom  of  God  coming  with  power,  they 
could  not  be  exjjected  to  interest  themselves  in 
local  affairs  and  transitory  concerns.  It  was  only 
in  such  an  atmosphere  of  expectation  that  the 
ideal  of  Jesus  could  survive,  dealing  as  it  did  with 
the  inner  life  of  the  individual.  Society  was  past 
caring  for.  The  state  was  a  foreign  power.  They 
might  pay  tribute  to  Caesar  or  not.  He  was  not  a 
judge  over  them  in  matters  of  law.  The  relation 
of  master  and  servant  did  not  interest  him.  Nei- 
ther poverty  nor  riches  was  worth  talking  about ; 
and  apart  from  the  injunction  against  divorce  for 
frivolous  reasons,  the  family  received  as  scant 
consideration  as  society.  He  denied  any  claim 
upon  his  thought  by  his  mother  or  his  brethren. 
Those  alone  who  did  the  will  of  God  were  his 
brother,  his  sister,  his  mother. 

In  the  world  of  reality  this  ideal  must  fail.  It 
involved  anarchy  in  government,  communism  in 
property,  and  the  end  of  all  that  civilization  had 
so  laboriously  built  up.  Indeed  the  experiment 
was  actually  tried  of  abandoning  all  worldly  pos- 
sessions. The  conduct  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     257 

is  sufficient  commentary  upon  its  result,  and 
the  shocking  fate  which  befell  them  was  intended 
as  a  salutary  warning  to  those  who  were  dis- 
posed to  lie  to  the  Holy  Ghost  by  keeping  back 
"a  part  of  the  price."  From  what  we  know  of 
the  immutability  of  human  nature,  we  are  not 
disposed  to  wonder  that  so  sharp  a  lesson  was 
needed. 

In  spite  of  these  sure  promises  and  high  hopes, 
nothing  had  happened.  It  was  no  longer  of  any 
use  to  appeal  to  the  emotions  and  the  imagina- 
tion. Jesus  was  dead.  He  was  not  coming  again. 
The  disciples  also  who  were  to  witness  that  com- 
ing were  passing  away,  —  even  the  disciple  to 
whom  Jesus  was  reported  to  have  said  that  the 
Gates  of  Hades  should  not  prevail  against  him. 
Jerusalem  had  fallen.  This  word  of  prophecy  was 
fulfilled,  and  yet  the  Parousia  was  as  far  off  as 
ever.  Men  were  becoming  impatient,  and  enquired 
specifically  if  the  coming  should  be  in  the  second 
watch  of  the  night  or  in  the  third.  The  evangelists 
did  their  best.  The  earliest  eschatological  deliver- 
ance reads  :  "  Immediately  after  the  tribulation 
of  those  days  cometh  the  Son  of  Man."  Mark 
suppressed  the  word  "  immediately,"  and  Luke 
became  still  less  explicit  in  the  words,  "These 
things  must  needs  come  to  pass  first,  but  the  end 


258  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

is  not  immediately."  The  Season  of  the  Gentiles, 
he  affirmed,  must  intervene ;  and  those  who  be- 
came discouraged  were  reminded  by  the  parable 
of  the  foolish  virgins  of  the  fate  which  overtook 
those  who  fell  asleep  because  the  bridegroom 
delayed  his  coming. 

Yet  the  murmuring  increased  in  intensity.  To 
allay  it  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  was  written, 
reassuring  those  who  had  witnessed  the  death  of 
a  whole  generation  of  Christians  who  had  not 
obtained  the  promise  nor  received  salvation.  The 
Epistle  of  James  with  its  dogmatic  belief  in 
requital  was  written  for  the  same  purpose,  to 
urge  the  brethren  to  be  patient  unto  the  coming  of 
the  Lord.  The  disappointment  finds  full  expres- 
sion in  the  Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  in  which  we 
have  an  account  of  the  mockers  who  exclaimed : 
"  Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  For  from 
the  day  that  the  fathers  fell  asleep  all  things  con- 
tinue as  they  were."  Against  these  mockers  the 
full  force  of  Jewish  vituperation  is  directed,  and 
the  writer  finds  an  explanation  of  the  apparent 
deception  in  the  assumption  that  one  day  is  with 
the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand 
years  as  one  day. 

These  dialectical  exercises  were  intended  to 
confound  the  Jews.  For  himself  Paul  had  other 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     259 

evidence  for  the  authority  of  Jesus.  The  impres- 
sion that  he  had  seen  "  the  Lord  "  was  so  strong 
that  no  further  attestation  was  required ;  and  we 
shall  arrive  at  no  understanding  of  Paul's  place 
in  the  history  of  the  development  of  theology,  or 
comprehend  the  work  which  he  performed,  if  we 
neglect  the  importance  of  that  portentous  experi- 
ence which  he  encountered  on  the  road  from  Jeru- 
salem to  Damascus.  If  we  miss  that  central  fact, 
we  are  lost  in  any  attempt  to  follow  the  course  of 
his  thought.  It  was  in  the  forefront  of  his  preach- 
ing. His  life  was  determined  by  it.  Continually  he 
abandons  his  speculative  soteriology,  and  shapes 
his  course  anew  by  that  event.  Twice  he  protests : 
"Have  I  not  seen  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  ?"  ^  and 
again :  "  Last  of  all  he  was  seen  of  me  also."  ^ 
Yet  we  have  in  three  other  separate  places  his 
own  account  of  what  did  actually  occur,  and  in 
not  one  does  it  appear  that  he  had  in  reality 
seen  him.  In  Acts  ix,  3-7,  we  are  told  that  he 
saw  a  light  and  heard  a  voice,  that  he  asked  cer- 
tain questions  and  got  certain  replies.  We  are 
also  informed  that  the  men  with  him  heard  a 
voice,  but  saw  no  man.  In  Acts  xxii,  6,  we  are 
told  that  he  saw  a  light,  and  heard  a  voice,  and 
asked  certain  questions,  and  received  certain  an- 
1  1  Cor.  ix,  1.  2  1  Cor.  xv,  8. 


260  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

swers.  They  that  were  with  liitn  saw  the  Hgtt, 
but  heard  no  voice.  In  Acts  xxvi,  13,  he  is  cred- 
ited with  having  seen  a  light ;  and  those  that  were 
with  him  were  fallen  to  the  earth.  Upon  this  occa- 
sion he  alone  heard  the  voice  and  replied  to  its 
questions. 

A  mystery  has  been  made  of  this  experience 
of  Paul.  It  differed  only  in  degree  from  occur- 
rences which  any  one  may  witness,  who  is  careful 
to  observe  the  manifestations  of  the  human  mind. 
Paul  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  mind,  and  it  is 
only  to  be  expected  that  it  would  work  in  a 
powerful  way.  There  was  nothing  mysterious 
about  it,  save  in  so  far  as  conversion  is  always 
mysterious,  "a  fresh  miracle  every  time  it  occurs." 
At  any  rate  Paul  had  an  experience  on  his  way 
to  Damascus.  It  was  to  him  the  most  important 
thing  in  the  world ;  and  his  whole  life  was  spent 
in  disclosing  to  men  the  importance  of  such  an 
experience  for  them.  When  he  attempted  a  theo- 
retical explanation  of  the  occurrence  he  became 
Saul  the  Rabbi,  finding  —  to  apply  Mr.  Bradley's 
epigram  about  metaphysics  —  bad  reasons  in  de- 
fence of  a  position  which  could  be  won  only  by 
instinct  and  experience. 

The  Jews  by  no  means  took  their  punishment 
lying  down.  They  gave  as  good  as  they  got,  by 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    261 

weight  of  argument  and  authority,  nor  did  they 
neglect  the  employment  of  theii'  fine  talent  for 
vituperation  and  abuse.  They  directed  the  inci- 
dent of  Simon  Magus  against  Paul.  In  the  Apo- 
calyj)se  they  deliberately  excluded  him  from  apos- 
tolic rank.  They  delivered  him  up  to  the  Romans 
for  judgement  of  death.  Finally  they  had  resort 
to  the  great  argument  of  physical  force,  and  left 
him  for  dead.  As  if  this  were  not  enough,  they 
uttered  the  basest  slanders  about  his  private  life, 
alleging  with  an  ingenious  stroke  of  malice  that 
he  had  embraced  Christianity  in  a  fit  of  pique 
and  perturbation  of  mind  because  his  passion  for 
the  daughter  of  the  president  of  the  Sanhedrim 
had  not  been  reciprocated.  Jesus  himself  did  not 
escape  these  attentions.  They  said  of  him  that  he 
was  mad  and,  what  was  worse  in  their  eyes,  the 
son  of  a  Roman  soldier.  A  similar  slander  has 
been  revived  in  our  own  time. 

From  Paul's  claim  of  Tarsus  in  Cilicia  as  his 
birthplace,  his  boast  of  Roman  citizenship,  and 
his  appeal  to  Caesar,  —  a  boast  which  he  made 
once  too  often,  else  he  might  have  been  set  at 
liberty  by  Agrippa  and  Festus,  —  we  are  apt 
to  forget  that  his  life  was  indissolubly  bound  up 
with  the  Jewish  life  of  Jerusalem.  Certainly  he 
was  educated  in  that  environment,  possibly  in  the 


262  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

house  of  his  sister,  whose  son  afterwards  served 
him  so  well.  Yet  in  spite  of  his  rabbinical  train- 
ing, he  had  a  certain  capacity  for  finding  himself 
at  home  amongst  foreign  ideas,  which  conveys  the 
impression  that  he  was  more  thoroughly  imbued 
with  those  ideas  than  he  really  was.  He  had 
scarcely  a  tincture  of  Greek  philosophy,  and  no 
conception  whatever  of  Greek  religion  or  sym- 
pathy with  that  Greek  View  of  Life  which  Mr. 
Lowes  Dickinson  has  set  forth  with  so  much 
charm.  They  were  mere  heathen,  bewitched  by 
the  power  of  evil  so  that  they  came  to  believe  in 
a  lie. 

In  reality  Paul  was  untouched  by  the  Greek 
mind,  though  he  used  its  forms,  less,  however, 
than  many  Hebrews  of  his  time.  Before  the 
reign  of  Antiochus  IV,  many  Jews  of  noble  birth 
strove,  even  at  the  cost  of  submitting  to  a  surgi- 
cal operation,  to  appear  like  Greeks  in  their  per- 
son, so  enamoured  were  they  of  that  rich,  strong, 
delicate,  and  free  spirit.  Three  centuries  before 
the  Jewish  law  was  destroyed  the  official  keepers 
felt  that  it  was  slipping  away  in  spite  of  the 
elaborate  framework  which  they  had  erected  for 
its  preservation.  They  forged  the  name  of  God 
and  the  Fathers  to  give  sacredness  to  their  work, 
and  prove  that  their  church  was  of  an  everlasting 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     263 

validity.  Those  who  protested  that  the  Levitical 
ordinances  were  of  recent  device  and  only  transi- 
tory in  their  application,  and  that  the  time  had 
come  for  their  abrogation  that  Israel  might  take 
its  place  as  a  nation  in  the  world,  were  hunted 
from  the  temple  as  apostates  and  paganizers.  The 
later  literature  of  the  Hebrews  is  merely  a  reit- 
eration of  cursings  against  the  inevitable  end  of 
their  nationality  and  the  form  of  their  religion. 
The  Hellenistic  spirit  was  at  work  upon  their 
most  sacred  ordinances,  and  through  them  upon 
the  Jewish  nationality. 

Paul  had  failed  in  his  attempt  to  break  down 
Jewish  exclusiveness.  The  whole  force  and  tide  of 
the  facts  was  ag-ainst  him.  The  messaoje  of  Jesus 
was  to  his  own  people,  although  he  was  willing 
that  all  men  should  hear  it.  The  disciples  did  not 
think  it  possible  to  go  through  all  the  cities  of 
Israel,  the  time  was  so  short  till  the  Son  of  Man 
should  come.  Mark  and  Matthew  make  no  men- 
tion of  any  mission  of  the  Gentiles.  Indeed  Mat- 
thew limits  it  explicitly  to  Palestine.  To  the  Jew 
religion  was  a  national  system,  the  product  of  a 
covenant  drawn  up  between  the  God  of  the  world 
and  a  peculiar  people  who  would  enter  into  the  her- 
itage of  it,  who  would  bend  all  other  peoples  to 
their  stubborn  will,  and  compel  them  to  adopt  Jew- 


264  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

ish  ceremonial,  juridical,  and  social  customs  as 
the  commandments  of  God.   This  was  their  law. 

In  reality  Jesus,  who  cared  very  little  about 
this  law,  sujoposed  that  he  was  fulfilling  it  by  neg- 
lecting its  observance.  The  disciples  understood 
that  Jesus  came  to  fulfil,  not  to  destroy  ;  and  the 
burden  of  Paul's  earlier  preaching  was  that  the 
law  had  been  fulfilled.  But  Jesus  elaborated  no 
doctrine.  He  merely  exemplified  a  holy  life  with 
God,  and  gave  himself  in  virtue  of  this  life  to  the 
service  of  his  fellow-men,  to  lead  them  out  of  the 
world  of  selfishness  to  a  union  in  love  in  the  king- 
dom of  God  which  now  is  and  is  eternal.  By  liv- 
ing in  the  riches  of  his  life  with  God,  he  became 
for  men  a  revelation  of  God  of  whom  they  heard 
but  had  not  known;  and  he  did  all  this — won 
men  to  God  —  and  yet  kept  himself  free  from  the 
entanglement  of  politics  and  theology,  and  his  fol- 
lowers from  bigotry  or  asceticism.  According  to 
him  the  Christian  church  was  merely  a  commun- 
ion of  hearts  in  union  with  God.  This  was  the 
true  Israel.  In  this  sense  he  fulfilled  the  law. 
Henceforth  the  individual  was  not  dependent  for 
salvation  upon  his  descent  from  Abraham,  but 
upon  his  responsibility  to  God.  In  that  sense  the 
law  was  destroyed. 

Jesus  brought  into  the  world  a  new  idea  which 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     265 

was  absolutely  destructive  of  Judaism,  and  Paul 
was  right  when  he  said,  "  Christ  is  the  end  of  the 
law."  Between  them  both  they  made  this  fact 
evident  to  the  world.  Paul,  however,  accepted  all 
the  postulates  of  the  law,  —  the  fall  of  man,  origi- 
nal sin,  atonement  by  sacrifice.  All  was  finished 
in  the  death  of  Jesus,  and  by  his  theory  of  the 
efficacy  of  that  death  he  did  not  found  a  new  theo- 
logy, but  merely  effected  a  transformation  of  the 
old.  It  was  an  attempt  to  put  new  wine  into  old 
bottles ;  but  as  Professor  Macnaughton  enquires 
so  pointedly:  "If  you  have  nothing  but  old  bot- 
tles, where  else  can  you  put  your  wine?  " 

This  elaborate  contrivance  was  devised  for  the 
Jews,  but  it  was  too  abstruse  to  appeal  to  their 
taste.  Paul  made  no  attempt  to  impose  this 
system  upon  the  Greeks.  To  appeal  to  them  he 
required  a  new  theology,  new  to  the  Hebrews  but 
not  to  the  Greeks.  Nothing  could  be  more  pan- 
theistic than  his  speech  on  Mars  Hill,  about  a  god 
in  whom  all  men  live,  and  move,  and  have  their 
being.  He  merely  offered  to  reveal  to  them  an 
additional  god  for  their  Pantheon,  who  had  the 
unusual  qualification  of  raising  men  from  the 
dead. 

He  was  quick  to  see  that  the  Greeks  demanded 
a  philosophy  of  religion,  which  the  Jews  never 


266  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

did,  and  he  proceeded  to  supply  that.  They  would 
have  a  mystery  and  he  would  show  them  a  mys- 
tery. Abandoning  his  conceptions  of  the  fall  of 
man,  original  sin,  the  blood-bought  atonement 
of  God,  and  the  sacrifice  now  transformed  into 
a  sacrament,  he  seized  upon  their  conception  of 
the  logos,  which  he  found  ready  at  his  hand,  and 
formulated  the  doctrine  that  Jesus  was  the  Son 
of  God.  It  is  extremely  difficult  to  ascertain  the 
degree  of  definiteness  which  this  doctrine  assumed 
in  the  mind  of  Paul,  and  there  is  a  strong  tend- 
ency to  impute  to  him  a  finality  of  conviction 
which  was  attained  only  by  his  followers.  To  the 
Jews  Paul  presented  Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  and 
they  rejected  him.  To  the  Greeks  he  was  lifted  up 
as  the  logos,  and  they  were  drawn  unto  him.  To 
them  the  logos  was  the  wisdom  of  God  as  revealed 
by  humanity  and  the  world,  with  a  preexistence  as 
a  distinct  person.  This  idea  fitted  in  well  enough 
with  the  Messianic  idea  to  make  it  easy  handling 
for  so  clever  a  theologian  as  Paid,  without  resort- 
ing to  the  coarse  device  of  making  Jesus  say  that 
he  was  the  logos. 

There  were  many  things  which  it  would  have 
been  convenient  for  Jesus  to  have  said  during 
his  lifetime,  and  occasion  was  taken  of  his  resur- 
rection to  supply  the  omission.    Matthew  closed 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    267 

his  work  with  the  command  of  the  risen  Lord  to 
evangelize  and  baptize  after  a  formula  which  con- 
fined salvation  to  the  church.  In  the  amazing 
conclusion  of  Mark  the  comment  is  added,  "  He 
that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved,  but 
he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned " ;  and 
these  words  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  Jesus. 

This  new  theology  by  a  confusion  of  metaphor 
with  argument  offered  an  explanation  of  Jesus  to 
intelligent  heathen.  They  worked  upon  it,  and 
finally  wrenched  Christianity  from  its  foundation 
and  squared  it  with  Greek  ethics  and  Alexan- 
drine philosophy.  The  approval  of  the  cultured 
was  won,  and  the  gods  were  cast  down  from  their 
place.  It  is  Paul's  claim  to  greatness  that  he 
delivered  Christianity  from  Judaism,  and  gave 
to  the  Gospel  a  language  which  is  somewhat  intel- 
ligible to  us  Gentiles.  He  thrust  the  law  out  of 
religion  mercilessly ;  or  rather  prevented  it  from 
forcing  its  way  into  Christianity  again. 

Christianity  had  scarcely  emerged  from  its 
conflict  with  the  Jews  when  it  was  obliged  to 
encounter  an  enemy  from  within.  The  Gnostics 
had  withdrawn  arrogantly  from  the  church  and 
the  fellowship.  If  we  are  correctly  informed  by 
the  writer  of  the  First  Epistle  of  John,  they 
hated  ordinary  Christians,  criticized  and  despised 


268  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

them,  and  gave  themselves  up  exclusively  to  their 
mystic  love  of  God.  The  polemic  against  this 
sect  had  begun  in  the  time  of  Paul.  In  the  Epistle 
to  the  Philippians  and  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephe- 
sians  the  watchword  is  proclaimed :  Be  united  in 
peace.  There  is  one  body,  one  spirit,  one  Lord, 
one  faith,  one  baptism.  This  controversy  culmi- 
nates in  the  Gospel  of  John. 

Paul  compromised  with  the  Greeks,  and  won 
them  not  for  Christianity  as  it  left  the  mind  of 
Jesus,  but  for  a  Christianity  which  had  been  cast 
in  a  Hellenic  mould.  As  in  all  compromises,  there 
were  losses  and  gains.  The  Fourth  Gospel  is  one. 
If  it  were  not  for  the  existence  of  Mark  and 
Matthew,  it  would  be  hard  to  contradict  success- 
fully the  logologists.  Under  the  influence  of  this 
doctrine  the  real  Jesus  was  replaced  by  a  hypo- 
thetical Christ,  by  a  personified  word.  He  became 
a  mystery  which  could  exist  only  in  the  vacuous 
atmosphere  of  the  professional  philosopher.  The 
mystery  in  time  replaced  the  person.  The  account 
of  it  became  "  a  programme  of  perfection."  Then 
followed  an  investigation  of  this  mystery,  and  for- 
mulas were  devised  which  can  be  understood  only 
by  professors  of  the  mysterious. 

One  curious  result  remains  firmly  embedded 
in  the  lower  strata  of  Protestantism.  The  Fourth 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    269 

Gospel  begins :  In  the  beginning  was  the  logos, 
and  the  logos  was  with  God,  and  the  logos  was 
a  god.  In  the  English  version  which  is  in  most 
common  use,  the  term  "logos"  is  translated  as 
"word."  It  is  inferred  that  the  Bible  is  the 
Word,  and  hence  that  this  collection  of  writings 
is  God,  a  perfectly  unjustifiable  conclusion.  Pro- 
fessor Harnack  states  very  clearly  the  objection 
to  this  logos  theory  in  the  words :  "  The  doctrine 
demands  that  this  image  should  be  apprehended 
solely  in  the  light  of  alleged  hypotheses  about 
Jesus,  expressed  in  theoretical  propositions." 

IV 
What  Jesus  did,  what  Paul  preached  to  the 
Gentiles,  is  best  summed  up  by  the  author  of 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews :  "  He  delivered  them 
who  through  fear  of  death  were  all  their  lifetime 
subject  to  bondage."  When  it  becomes  to  a  man 
a  matter  of  entire  indifference  whether  he  lives 
or  dies,  then  is  he  free ;  and  if  in  addition  he  is 
assured  of  a  glorious  resurrection,  as  the  saying 
is,  then  his  manumission  is  complete.  But  what 
Jesus  meant  by  saving  the  soul  was  preserving  it 
alive,  not  restoring  that  which  was  already  lost, 
and  the  means  which  he  recommended  were  a 
change  of  mind,  self-denial,  humility,  effacement. 


270  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

and  trust  in  God.  Henceforth  the  Christian  life 
was  to  be  one  of  simplicity  and  purity  of  disj^osi- 
tion,  with  a  heart  which  was  ever  the  same  in 
trouble,  in  renunciation,  in  possession,  and  use 
of  earthly  good.  The  man  is  to  be  a  new  crea- 
ture. 

The  Greeks  understood  this  doctrine  in  its 
grosser  form.  The  certainty  that  Jesus  could 
raise  men  from  the  dead  was  the  means  by  which 
Christianity  gained  a  foothold  in  the  world.  The 
reverse  conviction,  that  he  could  cast  them  into 
hell,  was  an  afterthought.  Of  course  the  more 
intelligent  of  the  heathen  received  this  new  doc- 
trine with  polite  mockery,  saying :  "  We  will 
hear  thee  again  of  this  matter " ;  as  Cleon  said 
to  Protus  in  Browning's  poem :  "  This  doctrine 
could  be  held  by  no  sane  man." 

The  desire  for  immortality  has  always  been  the 
dominant  wish  of  humanity.  To  the  Greeks  espe- 
cially, death  was  the  greatest  of  all  evils,  and  to 
live  for  ever  the  chief  of  blessings.  That  is  why 
Paul's  assurance  of  redemption  from  forgetful- 
ness,  elevation  to  the  divine  life,  and  final  deifi- 
cation, appealed  to  them  so  nearly.  Paul  had  the 
judgement  of  the  Patriarch  before  him,  that  in 
the  business  of  death  a  man  hath  no  preeminence 
over  the  beast :  the  one  like  the  other  lieth  down 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     271 

and  riseth  not.  In  a  more  elaborate  form  he  had 
that  great  word  of  Preaching:  "In  the  death  of 
a  man  there  is  no  remedy ;  neither  was  there  any 
man  known  to  have  returned  from  the  grave.  For 
we  are  born  to  all  adventure ;  and  we  shall  be 
hereafter  as  though  we  had  never  been  ;  for  the 
breath  in  our  nostrils  is  as  smoke,  and  a  little 
spark  in  the  moving  of  our  heart :  which  being 
extinguished,  our  body  shall  be  turned  into 
ashes,  and  our  spirit  shall  vanish  as  the  soft  air. 
And  our  name  shall  be  forgotten  in  time,  and  no 
man  shall  have  our  works  in  remembrance,  and 
our  life  shall  pass  away  as  the  trace  of  a  cloud, 
and  shall  be  disposed  as  a  mist  that  is  driven 
away  with  the  beams  of  the  sun  and  overcome 
with  the  heat  thereof.  For  our  time  is  a  very 
shadow  that  j^asseth  away;  and  after  our  end 
there  is  no  returning;  for  it  is  fast  sealed,  so 
that  no  man  cometh  again." 

Paul  offered  a  reply  to  the  wonder  of  Aris- 
totle, "  whether  the  dead  really  do  partake  of 
good  or  evil."  Unlike  other  wise  men  who  went 
before  and  came  after  him,  he  was  not  persuaded 
of  the  futility  of  attempting  it ;  nor  was  he  con- 
vinced that  "  a  dialogue  between  two  infants  in 
the  womb  concerning  the  state  of  this  world  might 
handsomely  illustrate  our  ignorance  of  the  next." 


272  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

Reasonable  as  the  Greeks  were,  the  future 
state  was  not  a  matter  of  entire  indifference  to 
them ;  although,  as  Cebes  remarked  to  Socrates, 
in  what  concerned  the  soul  they  were  apt  to  be 
incredulous,  and  agreed  with  Plato,  that  "  surely 
it  requires  a  great  deal  of  argument  and  many 
proofs  to  show  that  when  a  man  is  dead  his  soul 
yet  exists  and  has  any  force  or  intelligence." 
And  yet  upon  the  important  question  which  Job 
puts :  If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  it  mat- 
tered little  to  Paul  what  wise  men  thought  in 
comparison  with  what  he  felt. 

Truly  this  resurrection  of  the  body  was  a  new 
thing  to  the  Greeks.  They  yearned  for  immor- 
tality. They  were  not  in  love  with  easeful  death. 
Their  life  was  full  and  rich.  With  body  and 
mind  they  enjoyed  it.  Their  senses  were  fine  and 
their  intellects  keen.  Their  passions  were  intense. 
They  loved  life  :  it  was  so  good.  Corresponding 
with  their  enjoyment  of  this  world,  they  had  a 
horror  of  the  decay  of  death.  To  these  ancient 
men  it  was  an  awful  conception,  this  losing  of 
the  body,  and  the  soul  going  forth  naked,  cold, 
and  shuddering.  They  loved  their  souls.  They 
must  lose  them,  and  they  were  sad.  Their  religion 
offered  them  no  consolation.  They  had  some 
vague  notion  of  a  future  world,  but  it  was  a  chill, 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     273 

comfortless  place  of  shadows  and  phantoms,  like 
that  In  which  Ulysses  encountered  his  mother : 
" '  Mother  mine,  wherefore  dost  thou  not  tarry 
for  me  who  am  eager  to  seize  thee,  that  even  in 
Hades  we  twain  may  cast  our  arms  each  about 
the  other,  and  satisfy  us  with  chill  lament  ?  Is  it 
but  a  phantom  that  the  high  goddess  Persephone 
hath  sent  me,  to  the  end  that  I  may  groan  for 
more  exceeding  sorrow  ? '  So  spake  I,  and  my 
lady  mother  answered  me  anon :  '  Ah  me,  my 
child,  luckless  above  all  men.  Nought  doth  Per- 
sephone, the  daughter  of  Zeus,  deceive  thee  :  but 
even  in  this  wise  it  is  with  mortals  when  they 
die.  For  the  sinews  no  more  bind  together  the 
flesh  and  the  bones,  but  the  force  of  burning  fire 
abolishes  them,  so  soon  as  the  life  hath  left  the 
white  bones,  and  the  spirit  like  a  dream  flies 
forth  and  hovers  near.'  " 

In  the  funeral  oration  delivered  by  Pericles 
in  memory  of  those  who  had  fallen  In  war,  as 
reported  by  Thucydides,  there  is  not  much  com- 
fort from  the  suggestion  of  any  life  but  this :  "  I 
do  not  commiserate  the  parents  of  the  dead  who 
stand  here.  I  would  rather  comfort  them.  You 
know  that  your  life  has  been  passed  amid  mani- 
fold vicissitudes :  and  that  they  may  be  deemed 
fortunate  who  have  gained  most  honour,  whether 


274  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

an  honourable  death  like  theirs  or  an  honourable 
sorrow  like  yours,  and  whose  days  have  been  so 
ordered  that  the  term  of  their  happiness  is  like- 
wise the  term  of  their  life.  Some  of  you  are  at 
an  age  at  which  they  may  hoj^e  to  have  other 
children,  and  they  ought  to  bear  their  sorrow 
better.  Not  only  will  the  children  who  may  here- 
after be  born  make  them  forget  their  own  lost 
ones,  but  the  city  will  be  doubly  a  gainer.  She 
will  not  be  left  desolate  and  she  will  be  safer. 
For  a  man's  counsels  cannot  be  of  equal  weight 
and  worth,  when  he  alone  has  no  children  to  risk 
in  the  general  danger.  To  those  of  you  who  have 
passed  their  prime  I  say :  '  Congratulate  your- 
selves that  you  have  been  happy  during  the 
greater  part  of  your  days ;  remember  that  your 
life  of  sorrow  will  not  last  long,  and  be  comforted 
by  the  glory  of  those  who  are  gone.  For  the  love 
of  honour  alone  is  ever  young,  and  not  riches,  as 
some  say,  but  honour  is  the  delight  of  men  when 
they  are  old  and  useless.'  " 

The  epitaphs  of  the  Greeks,  which  remain  to  us, 
are  full  of  simple  human  feeling.  They  contain 
slight  suggestion  of  a  continuance  of  the  life  of 
the  dead.  The  following  is  a  precious  example : 
"  Farewell,  tomb  of  Melite.  The  best  of  women 
lies  here,  who  loved  her  loving  husband,  Ouesi- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     275 

mus.  Thou  wert  most  excellent,  wherefore  he 
longs  for  thee  after  thy  death ;  for  thou  wert  the 
best  of  wives."  —  "Farewell  thou  too,  dearest 
husband ;  only  love  my  children."  The  apocry- 
phal literature  of  the  Orphic  sect  constitutes  an 
exception  to  this  general  statement.  But  the  phi- 
losophy of  life  and  death  in  nature,  which  that 
mystic  brotherhood  inculcated,  never  gained  a  free 
acceptance,  at  least  until  the  time  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

The  fear  of  a  God,  of  a  power  invisible,  is 
always  the  beginning  of  wisdom  in  the  minds 
of  savages.  The  same  fear  was  the  beginning  of 
wisdom  to  the  Jews.  Every  new  religion  appeals 
to  this  desire  for  safety  from  obliteration  after 
death,  and  in  such  manner  did  Paul  appeal  to 
the  Greeks.  I  do  not  think  his  appeal  touches  us 
so  nearly.  Let  us  be  quite  frank.  We  do  not 
believe  that  the  thing  which  has  died  shall  rise 
again.  Our  belief  rather  is  that  that  which  lives 
for  ever  has  never  died,  cannot  die. 

What,  now,  was  it  that  Paul  preached  to  the 
Gentile  world  ?  That  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God, 
that  he  died,  and  rose  from  the  dead.  However  in- 
terested the  philosophers  might  be  in  the  first  of 
his  propositions,  the  people  at  large  seized  upon  the 
last.  That  was  the  new  thing  which  the  Athenians 


276  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

were  anxious  to  hear  about, — the  resurrection 
of  the  dead.  It  was  upon  that  question  he  was 
called  before  Felix,  "  touching  the  resurrection"  ; 
and  two  years  afterwards,  when  Agrippa  sat  in 
the  judgement  seat,  the  case  was  "  of  one  Jesus 
which  was  dead,  whom  Paul  affirmed  to  be  alive." 
Of  Agrippa  he  demanded  :  "  Why  should  it  be 
thought  a  thing  incredible  with  you  that  God 
should  raise  the  dead?"  As  if  the  announcement 
were  not  sufficiently  startling,  it  was  combined 
with  the  still  more  startling  announcement  that 
many  of  those  then  living  should  not  be  obliged 
even  to  go  through  the  formality  of  dying. 

When  Paul  said  that  Jesus  arose  from  the 
grave,  he  meant  precisely  what  he  said.  He  saw 
the  risen  Jesus.  It  is  one  thing  to  believe  Paul's 
statement:  it  is  quite  another  to  accept  his  ex- 
planation of  what  really  did  occur.  He  was  a  firm 
believer  in  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh,  as  all 
Jews  were,  and  the  matter  was  brought  to  an 
issue  in  opposition  to  the  Gnostics,  who  upheld  a 
spiritual  eschatology.  They  attacked  Paul  with 
his  own  words,  that  flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit 
the  kingdom.  The  martyrs  might  well  complain 
if  they  were  to  be  put  off  with  an  immaterial 
body.  They  would  say  the  thing  had  no  mean- 
ing. To  believe  anything  else  was  pure  docetism, 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     277 

against  which  the  writers  of  the  Pastoral  Epis- 
tles delivered  the  full  power  of  their  argument, 
to  show  that  Jesus  was  in  reality  a  man,  and  not 
an  appearance,  that  he  died  a  real  death,  and 
rose  with  that  body  which  had  been  laid  in  the 
grave. 

The  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  prepared 
for  this  docetic  heresy,  that  the  risen  Jesus  was 
a  phantom,  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Thomas 
in  the  words :  "  Except  I  shall  see  in  his  hands 
the  print  of  the  nails,  and  put  my  finger  into  the 
print  of  the  nails,  and  thrust  my  hand  into  his 
side,  I  will  not  believe."  Jesus  appears  and  ac- 
cepts the  challenge  with  the  words,  "  Reach  hither 
thy  hand,  and  thrust  it  into  my  side."  Ignatius 
puts  the  case  clearly  when  he  asks :  "  Why  should 
I  suffer  myself  to  be  cast  to  the  lions  for  a  faith 
which  rests  upon  an  illusion  ? "  Paul  is  equally 
clear  in  his  declaration  :  "  If  Christ  be  not  risen, 
then  is  our  preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is  also 
vain.  If  the  dead  rise  not,  what  advantageth  any- 
thing?" A  man  might  then  as  well  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merry,  if  to-morrow  he  was  about  to  die. 

But  this  Jewish  theory  of  the  restoration  of  life 
to  a  body  which,  like  the  body  of  Lazarus,  "  al- 
ready stank,"  was  disgusting  to  the  more  sensi- 
tive Greeks.  When  the  matter  was  brought  before 


278  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

them  at  Athens  some  mocked,  and  others  said  po- 
litely that  they  would  like  to  hear  more  about  it. 
Paul  instantly  abandoned  his  belief  in  the  resur- 
rection of  the  flesh,  and  devised  the  new  theory 
of  a  spiritual  body,  thereby  surrendering  the  very 
essence  of  his  doctrine.  It  requires  only  the  slight- 
est capacity  for  the  perception  of  absurdity  to 
appreciate  how  feeble  is  the  fallacy  in  his  argument 
that  the  dead  body  is  sown  as  a  natural  body  and 
is  raised  as  a  spiritual  body.  It  carries  weight 
only  because  it  in  turn  is  borne  up  by  his  splendid 
declaration  which  ends  with  the  cry  of  triumph, 
"  O  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  O  grave,  where  is 
thy  victory  ?  "  Also  this  strange  reasoning  from 
the  facts  of  agriculture,  physiology,  and  astronomy 
passes  unnoticed,  because  it  is  commonly  heard 
upon  occasion  when  the  emotions  are  dominant 
over  the  intellect.  Looking  at  the  argument  criti- 
cally, one  must  dissent,  and  be  prepared  to  accept 
for  himself  the  opprobrious  epithet  which  Paul 
applied  to  an  equally  recalcitrant  objector  of  his 
own  day. 

All  systems  of  religion  have  their  origin  in  the 
desire  for  self-preservation.  Prayers  and  sacrifices 
were  first  devised  to  avert  the  misery  which  would 
come  from  the  destruction  of  cattle  and  the  fail- 
ure of  crops.  Any  system  in  which  there  was  a 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     279 

reasonable  probability  of  safety  from  death  was 
sure  of  acceptance.  When  probability  was  trans- 
formed into  certainty,  success  was  assured.  Jesus 
redeemed  men  from  the  fear  of  death  by  teaching 
them  that  death  does  not  matter,  that  it  also  is  a 
gift  from  God.  Paul  based  his  appeal  on  the  more 
obvious  ground  that  if  men  died  at  all,  they  would 
soon  overcome  the  inconvenience.  As  a  result  they 
grew  anxious  to  have  the  performance  over.  To 
die  was  gain.  Courage  to  live  gave  place  to  indif- 
ference ;  and  fearlessness  to  a  morbid  craving  for 
death,  to  which  martyrdom  was  the  readiest  road. 
Disturbance  of  the  normal  attitude  toward  that 
event  arises  out  of  abnormal  notions  about  what 
is  to  follow  after.  Exaggerated  ideas  of  hell  and 
heaven  have  an  influence  upon  conduct  in  this 
world.  As  time  went  on,  the  doctrine  of  the  resur- 
rection became  less  spiritualized,  and  all  the 
churches  which  were  founded  by  Paul  reverted  to 
that  grossly  material  belief  of  the  Jews,  by  the 
bold  declaration  of  which  the  Gentiles  were  won. 
Judaism  was  a  religion  of  national  hope,  which 
Christianity  spiritualized  and  transformed  into 
hope  for  the  world.  Paganism  at  its  worst  was  a 
counsel  of  despair,  and  at  its  best  little  more  than 
negation.  The  Golden  Age  was  past  and  gone. 
Even  if  there  were  cycles  of  events  in  human  his- 


280  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

tory,  these  were  only  the  slow  gradations  of  decay. 
Of  better  things  there  was  no  promise.  Vergil 
alone  of  all  the  poets  introduced  in  his  fourth 
Eclogue  a  note  of  hope  into  the  despairing  chorus; 
and  so  singular  is  it,  that  certain  scholars  have 
marked  it  as  "Messianic,"  and  attributed  its  ori- 
gin to  Hebrew  influence.  Christianity  too  had  its 
golden  age  in  Eden.  True,  that  happy  period  was 
shared  in  by  only  two  persons,  and  lasted  not  more 
than  a  comparatively  few  moments.  Yet  there 
was  a  way  of  return,  and  Paul  had  the  explanation. 
The  one  obvious  fact  in  the  world  is  the  presence 
of  death,  obvious  alike  to  Jew  and  Gentile,  to  Jesus 
and  to  us.  Paul  had  an  explanation  of  that  too. 
The  whole  creation  is  in  a  state  of  misery.  Death 
rules  supreme,  and  clings  to  humanity  like  in- 
fected and  "rotten  rags."  The  cause  of  death  is 
sin,  and  death  passes  upon  all,  because  all  have 
sinned  in  the  rabbinical  sense  of  Adam's  sin,  and 
in  their  own  experience  as  well.  Not  only  does  he 
admit  that  all  are  free  to  sin  and  to  incur  the 
penalty;  he  affirms  that  sin  is  laid  upon  men  as 
a  necessity.  In  this  he  offers  two  explanations  of 
the  origin  of  sin,  which  are  contradictory :  the  one, 
that  it  is  due  to  Adam's  fall;  and  the  other,  that 
it  is  due  to  the  earthly  nature  which  we  in  common 
with  him  inherit. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     281 

Paul  is  not  concerned  with  reconciling  these  two 
statements,  that  sin  is  the  cause  and  again  the 
effect  of  the  fall.  He  is  more  concerned  with 
demonstrating  the  solidarity  of  the  race,  and  the 
universality  of  sin,  at  the  expense  of  admitting 
a  second  principle  side  by  side  with  God,  caring 
not  that  his  thought  becomes  not  Jewish  and  yet 
not  wholly  Greek,  in  order  that  he  may  demon- 
strate the  supreme  necessity  for  the  death  of  Jesus 
and  the  universal  validity  of  the  sacrifice.  "  None 
is  righteous;  no,  not  one,"  is  the  pessimistic  pre- 
lude to  his  apologetic  that  Jesus  alone  is  the 
Redeemer  of  men. 

To  the  Jewish  mind,  forgiveness  could  come 
only  through  sacrifice,  and  for  such  a  condition  as 
universal  sin  Paul  declared  nothing  less  than  uni- 
versal sacrifice  would  suffice.  Accordingly  Jesus 
must  be  the  Messiah  of  God,  in  order  that  his 
propitiatory  death  should  once  and  for  all  relieve 
men  and  angels  from  the  necessity  for  any  minor 
sacrifices.  The  law  was  fulfilled  and  destroyed 
in  the  same  moment.  Yet  Paul  freed  this  sacri- 
fice from  the  gross  idea  that  it  was  given  to  an 
angry  god  to  turn  away  his  wrath,  or  to  a  devil 
in  order  that  he  might  release  his  hold.  It  was 
love  alone  which  instigated  God  to  this  sacrifice 
of  his  Son,  to  certify  to  men  that  a  complete  act 


282  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

of  propitiation  had  taken  place,  of  which  they 
might  fully  avail  themselves.  The  cross  then 
becomes  the  symbol  of  God's  love. 

The  Jews  had  their  own  method  of  dealing  with 
sin,  in  which  they  employed  rams,  goats,  turtle- 
doves, and  young  pigeons.  It  was  not  the  way 
of  Jesus.  He  said  simply,  Thy  sins  be  forgiven 
thee,  follow  me.  Those  who  accepted  this  advice 
were  elevated  to  a  peculiar  condition  of  happiness. 
They  were  redeemed  from  sickness  and  suffering. 
The  alienated  from  the  church  were  brought 
back  to  God.  The  outcasts  were  consoled  by  his 
compassion.  They  received  the  love  which  they 
needed.  They  were  redeemed  from  the  theologi- 
ans, from  the  Jewish  church,  from  fear  and  care. 
By  his  fearlessness  he  gave  them  courage  to  face 
the  temptations  of  the  world.  Even  death  he 
robbed  of  its  terror.  Death  could  not  be  a  punish- 
ment for  sin,  since  he,  the  sinless  one,  himself  died. 
Such  a  combination  of  innocence  and  experience, 
ingenuousness  and  wisdom,  observation  and  hope, 
austerity  and  blithesome  joy,  could  exist  only  in 
the  person  of  Jesus.  When  he  perished,  a  fresh 
explanation  was  required  of  that  miracle  by  which 
a  man  is  turned  away  from  following  after  evil 
and  cleaves  to  that  which  is  good. 

Two  methods  presented  themselves.  Nay,  there 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     283 

was  but  one.  His  teaching  was  inseparable  from 
his  person.  He  was  dead.  Rightly  or  wrongly  his 
followers  presented  him  to  their  fellow-country- 
men in  a  new  guise.  They  declared  that  he  was 
the  Messiah,  and  his  death  the  supreme  and  all- 
sufficient  sacrifice. 

This  attempt  to  make  of  Jesus  the  Messiah  was 
a  bold  one.  Success  would  mean  that  the  strong- 
hold of  Jewish  aspiration  had  been  captui-ed,  be- 
cause it  was  upon  this  idea  that  all  the  national 
hope  was  fixed.  The  best  account  which  we  have 
of  the  dominance  of  this  faith  is  contained  in 
"  The  Book  of  Jubilees,"  written  in  Hebrew  by 
a  Pharisaic  upholder  of  the  Maccabean  dynasty, 
discovered  complete  in  an  Ethiopia  version,  and 
translated  by  Dr.  R.  H.  Charles,  Professor  of 
Biblical  Greek  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin.  This 
book  is  a  reediting  of  early  history,  whereby  the 
spirit  of  later  Judaism  is  infused  into  the  primi- 
tive history  of  the  world.  The  object  of  the  writer 
was  to  defend  Judaism  against  those  who  were 
protesting  that  the  time  had  come  for  the  Leviti- 
cal  ordinance  of  the  law  to  be  swept  away,  and  for 
Israel  to  take  its  place  in  the  brotherhood  of  the 
nations.  He  endeavoured  to  show  that  the  law 
was  of  everlasting  validity,  that  it  had  been  kept 
in  heaven  by  the  angels,  and  would  be  kept  to  all 


284  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

eternity.  These  were  the  palmiest  days  of  the 
Maccabean  dominion,  in  which  the  immediate 
advent  of  the  Messiah  sprung  from  Judah  was 
expected,  whose  kingdom  would  be  realized  on 
earth,  and  the  transformation  of  physical  nature 
would  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  ethical  transfor- 
mation of  the  people.  There  would  be  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth.  All  sin  and  pain  would 
disappear,  and  men  would  live  to  the  age  of  a 
thousand  years  in  happiness  and  peace,  and  after 
death  enjoy  a  blessed  immortality  in  the  spirit 
world. 

The  Messiahship  must  have  been  revolting  to 
Jesus,  especially  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  minis- 
try. To  him  the  suggestion  was  the  voice  of  Satan, 
that  he  should  attain  to  power  and  sovereignty 
as  an  earthly  king.  To  whatever  degree  he  may 
have  acquiesced  in  the  idea  before  his  death,  it 
was  entirely  foreign  to  his  nature  that  he  should 
think  of  himself  as  a  conqueror  on  a  white  steed 
at  the  head  of  a  heavenly  host,  and  the  eagles 
gathered  together  to  devour  the  dead  bodies  of 
the  slain. 

The  advent  of  this  Messiah  was  important  to 
the  Jews  alone.  The  Gentiles  were  to  have  no 
part  in  the  realization  of  the  hope,  and  the  course 
of  Christianity  was  shaped  to  conform  with  this 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     285 

narrow  national  ambition.  It  is  as  if  Christian 
Scientists  were  to  write  the  life  of  the  founder  of 
their  sect  to  prove  that  in  their  society  was  real- 
ized the  Utopia  of  which  Mr.  Wells  prophesied. 
To  us  Gentiles  the  appearance  of  the  Messiah 
was  an  event  rather  to  be  dreaded,  since  the  He- 
brew race  has  never  been  winsome  in  its  moment 
of  triumph.  It  is  in  the  light  of  this  hope  we 
must  read  the  Gospels.  Jesus  said,  "  I  thirst," 
not  because  he  was  enduring  the  last  things,  but 
"  in  order  that  the  scripture  might  be  fulfilled," 
as  the  later  writers,  Matthew  and  John,  are  so 
careful  to  record.  The  Old  Testament  was  ran- 
sacked for  proof  that  Jesus  was  the  promised  one. 
The  sacrifices  and  trespass-offerings,  the  offering 
up  of  Isaac,  the  brazen  serpent  in  the  wilder- 
ness, were  interpreted  in  this  sense,  and  the  apolo- 
gists did  not  refrain  from  forgery  in  striving  to 
strengthen  their  cause. 

Descent  from  David  was  necessary,  and  after 
the  death  of  Jesus  a  genealogy  was  constructed, 
a  feat  to  which  his  relatives  would  not  object. 
Rather,  two  genealogies  were  contrived  to  meet 
the  case,  which  unfortunately  differ  from  each 
other  in  certain  important  particulars ;  but  the 
task  was  comparatively  easy,  as  the  discovery  of 
the  miraculous  birth  had  not  yet  been  made.  This 


286  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

Davidic  theory  implied  that  Bethlehem  was  the 
scene  of  the  nativity,  although  it  was  well  known 
that  Jesus  came  from  Nazareth.  To  meet  this  dif- 
ficulty, the  first  evangelist  explains  how  it  came 
about  that  Jesus  lived  in  Nazareth,  and  Luke  has 
an  elaborate,  though  circumstantial,  account  of 
the  circumstances  under  which  the  child  came  to 
be  born  in  the  proper  place.  Another  difficulty 
was  the  baptism  by  John,  since  that  implied  the 
inferiority  of  Jesus.  This  was  avoided  by  all  three 
evangelists,  each  in  his  own  way.  Matthew  records 
that  Jesus  merely  suffered  himself  to  be  baptized. 
Luke  lessens  the  difficulty  by  recording  the  mag- 
nanimous testimony  of  the  Baptist;  and  John 
makes  him  the  first  to  confess  Jesus  publicly. 

A  new  difficulty  arose.  Jesus  was  obviously  a 
man,  and  a  layman  at  that,  as  Professor  Wernle, 
who  above  all  investigators  combines  religious 
feeling  with  sane  scholarship  and  calm  criticism, 
continually  insists.  He  was  born  and  brought 
up  amongst  his  neighbours.  They  knew  his  par- 
ents, his  brothers,  his  sisters ;  and  quite  probably 
they  employed  him  to  exercise  his  trade.  They 
had  no  suspicion  of  his  greatness.  His  own  par- 
ents thought  him  mad.  In  the  earlier  account 
of  his  life  as  given  by  Mark  we  are  continually 
reminded  of  the  limitations  of  his  physical  and 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     287 

even  of  his  moral  powers.  He  is  obliged  to  seek 
information  from  his  followers.  He  asks  them 
the  subject  of  their  conversation,  how  long  the 
epileptic  had  suffered  from  his  malady,  what  was 
the  name  of  the  demon,  and  who  it  was  that  had 
touched  him.  He  does  not  know  the  day  nor  hour 
of  the  Parousia,  nor  has  he  authority  to  assign 
places  of  honour  in  heaven.  At  times  he  cannot 
perform  miracles.  He  cannot  heal  the  sick  nor 
make  the  blind  to  see.  He  will  not  even  suffer 
himself  to  be  called  good,  an  admission  which  the 
later  evangelists  are  careful  to  omit.  These  facts 
were  inconvenient,  and  they  disposed  of  them  by 
the  easy  literary  devices  which  were  commonly 
employed  in  those  days. 

But  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  claims  of  Mes- 
siahship  was  the  fact  of  Jesus'  death.  That  could 
not  be  denied,  nor  was  it  desirable  that  it  should 
be.  On  the  contrary,  evidence  was  offered  that  it 
was  so.  The  testimony  of  the  Roman  soldiers  was 
given,  and,  as  if  to  make  doubly  sure,  the  inci- 
dent of  the  spear-thrust  was  put  forward.  This 
objection  was  met  by  the  affirmation  that  Jesus 
rose  from  the  dead.  The  Jews  admitted  the  pos- 
sibility, but  explained  the  occurrence  in  a  man- 
ner which  brought  credit  to  themselves.  It  was 
well  known,  they  said,  that  a  body  placed  in  a 


288  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

tomb  which  was  occupied  by  that  of  a  prophet 
would  revive  when  it  came  in  contact  with  the 
sacred  bones.  The  answer  to  this  was  that  the 
body  of  Jesus  had  been  laid  in  a  new  sepulchre 
that  was  hewn  out  of  a  rock,  wherein  never  man 
before  was  laid.  Finally  the  Jews  retorted  that 
the  disciples  had  stolen  the  body,  but  this  charge 
was  refuted  by  the  story  of  the  sealing  of  the 
tomb,  and  the  w^atch  which  was  set.  And  so  the 
contention  went  on  and  grew  in  intensity,  as  one 
may  learn  who  reads  the  Gospels  in  the  order 
in  which  they  were  written.  The  Jews  asserted 
that  the  death  of  Jesus  was  a  punishment.  To 
this  the  Christians  retorted,  "  Yes  ;  but  for  your 
sins."  The  controversy  was  in  this  simple  form 
when  Paul  appeared  upon  the  scene,  importing 
new  conceptions  of  sacrifice,  propitiation,  and 
redemption.  By  a  rapid  manipulation  of  these 
theological  ideas,  he  complicated  the  subject,  con- 
fused his  opponents,  and  left  to  us  this  specula- 
tive burden  of  sin  and  its  atonement.  The  things 
which  we  prize  in  the  life  of  Jesus  were  of  little 
value  in  the  estimation  of  Paul.  His  life  was  as 
nothing  in  comparison  with  the  theological  im- 
portance of  his  death. 

There  was  nothing  improbable  in  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Jesus.  The  Jews  were  convinced  upon 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     289 

much  less  striking  testimony  that  the  Baptist  had 
risen  from  the  dead ;  and  it  was  a  settled  convic- 
tion amongst  the  Greeks  that  Asklepios,  who  had 
been  struck  by  lightning,  ascended  up  into  heaven. 
Clement  found  a  powerful  analogy  in  the  case  of 
the  Phoenix.  Yet  Paul  was  not  content  to  take 
for  granted  a  fact  which  was  so  amply  attested 
by  Peter,  by  the  twelve,  by  himself,  and  by  five 
hundred  of  the  brethren,  of  whom  many  were 
yet  alive  and  amenable  to  questions.  He  pro- 
ceeded to  prove  it  by  ethical  considerations.  He 
attempted  a  theoretical  explanation  of  it,  and  so 
raised  the  controversy  above  vulgarity.  The  death 
and  resurrection  implied  that  the  old  was  at  an 
end,  —  sin,  death,  the  ruin  of  Adam's  fall,  —  and 
that  the  day  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  had  already 
dawned.  But  experience  was  against  him.  The 
flesh  continued  to  lust  against  the  spirit,  and  his 
experiment  in  founding  Jewish  Christianity  upon 
a  miracle  had  failed.  He  did  not  succeed  in  con- 
vincing the  Jews,  even  if  he  succeeded  in  convinc- 
ing himself.  The  parable  of  the  sower  had  a  fresh 
application.   The  task  was  impossible. 

The  idea  of  the  priesthood  was  so  ingrained  in 
the  Jewish  nature  that  the  next  move  was  to  make 
of  Jesus  a  high  priest ;  and  in  this  attempt  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  exercises 


290  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

unusual  theological  subtlety.  Jesus  might  be  the 
son  of  David.  Obviously  he  was  not  of  the 
priestly  line.  But  he  was  something  greater.  He 
was  a  high  priest  after  the  order  of  Melchise- 
dee,  that  ghostly  figure  to  whom  Abraham  paid 
tithes,  and  offered  other  marks  of  reverence.  The 
authority  of  Jesus  was  therefore,  in  point  of 
antiquity,  greater  than  that  of  any  priest,  even 
were  it  Aaron  himself.  In  other  respects  also  his 
superiority  was  revealed.  The  priests  of  Aaron 
were  many ;  they  were  sinful ;  they  worshipped 
in  a  temple  made  with  hands ;  they  made  atone- 
ment year  by  year  with  the  blood  of  bulls  and 
calves.  But  Jesus  was  one;  he  was  sinless;  he 
worshipped  in  the  heavenly  temple ;  he  made 
atonement  once  for  all,  and  that  with  his  own 
blood.  In  all  this  the  author  is  very  clever,  but 
not  clever  enough  to  notice  that  Jesus  cannot  at 
the  same  time  be  victim  and  priest  and  yet  main- 
tain his  authority. 

This  theological  trifling  would  do  very  well  for 
the  Jews.  The  Greeks  were  not  more  interested 
in  the  Messiah  than  we  are.  They  demanded  a  god, 
or  at  least  the  son  of  a  god,  and  forthwith  their 
need  was  supplied.  Nor  was  this  task  easy  even 
in  the  hands  of  Paul,  in  face  of  the  deep  humility 
of  Jesus,  who  rebuked  the  rich  young  man  with 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     291 

the  words,  "  Why  callest  thou  me  good  ?  There  is 
none  good  but  God." 

To  the  Greek  mind  the  idea  was  very  familiar 
that  the  gods  walked  the  earth  in  human  form, 
and  the  very  process  of  reasoning  which  Paul 
applied  to  Jesus  was  now  applied  to  himself.  At 
Lystra,  where  he  had  healed  the  man  who  was 
impotent  in  his  feet, —  a  thing  he  might  easily 
do,  seeing  that  the  man  had  faith  to  be  healed, 
—  the  people  cried  with  one  voice,  "The  gods 
are  come  down  to  us  in  the  likeness  of  men  " ; 
and  the  priest  of  Jupiter  brought  oxen  and  gar- 
lands unto  the  gates  and  would  have  done  sacri- 
fice with  the  people.  Again,  when  the  barbarous 
people  of  Melita  saw  him  shake  off  into  the  fire 
the  viper  which  had  fastened  itself  onto  his  hand, 
and  that  he  did  not  swell  up  or  fall  down  dead, 
they  changed  their  minds  and  said  that  he  was 
a  god. 

It  is  worth  remarking  that  the  accounts  which 
are  given  of  the  miracles  which  Paul  performed 
are  given  with  some  reserve.  We  are  not  told 
that  he  was  actually  bitten  by  the  venomous  beast. 
When  he  was  stoned  by  the  Jews  who  had  come 
from  Antioch  and  Iconium,  and  came  to  himself 
again,  he  was  only  supposed  to  have  been  dead. 
Again,  the  fortunate  young  man,  Eutychus,  who 


292  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

as  Paul  was  long  preaching  sunk  down  with  sleep 
and  fell  from  the  third  loft,  and  was  taken  up 
for  dead,  was  not  in  reality  dead,  for  the  Apostle 
specifically  declared  that  they  should  not  trouble 
themselves,  as  his  life  was  yet  in  him. 

Simon  Magus  claimed  openly  that  he  was  a 
god.  The  Emperor  Augustus  was  publicly  ac- 
claimed as  dominus  ac  deus  noster.  In  Egypt  the 
Ptolemies  had  been  equally  blessed.  The  Stoic 
sect  of  Heraclitus  went  still  further  and  declared 
that  all  men  are  gods,  and  the  Neo-Platonists 
spoke  of  their  philosophers  indifferently  as  lord, 
god,  angel.  Finally,  when  Polycarp  was  burned 
by  the  Smyrnaeans,  they  took  measures  that  the 
Christians  should  not  accord  to  him  divine  hon- 
ours. In  this  case,  however,  there  was  an  especial 
reason  for  deification,  since  he  had  died  the  mar- 
tyr's death,  and  in  the  Semitic  sacrificial  ritual  the 
blood  of  the  martyr  possessed  a  peculiar  virtue 
in  the  atonement  for  sin.  That  is  the  reason,  also, 
why  the  blood  of  Jesus  so  readily  lent  itself  to  the- 
ological speculation  and  reflection.  The  fourth 
book  of  the  Maccabees  gives  the  best  account  of 
the  power  which  vicarious  suffering  exercises 
upon  the  determination  of  God.  The  whole  theory 
of  punishment  and  propitiation  was  applied  to 
the  death  of  Jesus,  by  which  it  was  transformed 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     293 

from  a  manifestation  of  love  to  a  juridical  and 
forensic  affair,  as  merely  the  mechanical  fulfilment 
of  prophecy,  for  no  other  reason  than  "  that  the 
scriptures  might  be  fulfilled." 

The  Jews  protested.  They  accused  the  Chris- 
tians of  idolatry ;  and  they  in  turn,  to  defend 
themselves,  transferred  this  charge  to  Jesus,  as- 
signing it  as  the  cause  of  his  condemnation  to 
death.  Mark  merely  suggests.  John  reproduces 
the  accusation  plainly  :  "  He  blasphemes  God  in 
that  he,  being  a  man,  made  himself  equal  to 
God."  If  this  were  the  charge  upon  which  Jesus 
was  condemned,  then  the  statement  contained  in 
it  must  be  true,  and  the  Pauline  theory  correct. 

The  Greeks  misunderstood  the  Hebrew  usage 
in  respect  of  the  word  "  son."  They  supposed 
that  Son  of  God  meant  a  heavenly  being  who 
had  proceeded  in  some  mysterious  way  from  the 
Father,  whilst  in  reality  it  had  a  general  meaning 
such  as  is  found  in  the  expression,  sons  of  the 
Pharisees,  sons  of  the  kingdom,  sons  of  the  devil, 
or  sons  of  hell.  Then,  by  analogy  with  other 
myths  of  the  gods,  the  parentage  of  the  Son  of 
God  is  ascribed  to  God  and  a  mortal  woman,  as 
described  in  the  opening  chapters  of  the  First 
and  Third  Gospels.  Most  of  the  Jewish  Christians 
rejected  it,  as  it  did  away  with  the  descent  from 


294  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

David.  Of  course  the  Christian  spirit  worked 
upon  this  heathen  fabrication  and  removed  from 
it  every  trace  of  sensuality.  Justin  found  an 
analogy  with  Perseus,  who  was  born  of  a  virgin, 
and  Celsus  found  further  analogies  in  Amphion, 
-3]acus,  and  Minos.  His  death,  too,  was  compared 
with  that  of  Asklepios,  who  was  struck  by  light- 
ning, Dionysos,  who  was  dismembered,  and  Hera- 
cles, who  was  burned  on  the  funeral  pyre. 

The  Jews  as  the  chosen  people  were  the  sons 
of  God,  replacing  the  angels  who  previously  bore 
that  high  designation.  Paul  transferred  the  title 
to  all  Christians,  as  in  the  letter  to  the  Galatians, 
"  Because  ye  are  sons,  God  sent  forth  the  Spirit 
into  your  hearts."  But  when  in  the  development 
of  his  thought  Jesus  came  to  occupy  a  more  ex- 
alted position,  the  term  Son  was  reserved  for  him 
alone,  and  Christians  were  spoken  of  as  children. 

But  Paul  never  uses  deliberately  the  expres- 
sion. Son  of  God,  in  its  specific  sense.  It  is  only 
when  he  is  under  the  influence  of  strong  emotion, 
and  attains  to  one  of  his  splendid  elevations  of 
thought,  that  he  assigns  to  Jesus  a  closer  relation 
to  God  than  that  which  is  implied  by  love  alone. 
The  "  divinity  of  Christ "  had  not  yet  become  a 
subject  of  theological  speculation,  of  dogmatic 
statement,  or  settled  belief.  To  Paul  Jesus  was  "  a 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     295 

man  such  as  we  are,"  in  spite  of  the  equivocal  ex- 
pressions in  which  the  words  "  image,"  "picture," 
"pattern,"  and  "likeness"  appear.  To  the  Greeks 
he  was  a  god  who  had  descended  from  heaven ; 
and  they  were  now  in  possession  of  anew  "idea" 
like  those  with  which  they  were  familiar.  But  the 
death  of  this  god  was  to  the  Greeks  a  stumbling- 
block,  as  the  death  of  the  Messiah  had  been  to 
the  Jews  an  offence.  A  theoretical  explanation 
of  the  event  must  be  found,  if  the  Jews  were  to 
be  silenced  and  the  Gentiles  won. 

Until  our  own  time  it  was  accounted  a  horrible 
thing  to  distinguish  between  the  deity  and  the 
divinity  of  Jesus.  It  was  upon  that  question 
Michael  Servetus  went  to  the  stake.  In  his  sym- 
pathetic study  of  that  strange  man.  Professor 
Osier  affirms  that,  if  the  victim  had  been  willing 
to  transpose  one  word  in  his  confession,  the  burn- 
ing sulphur  in  his  crown  of  straw  would  have 
been  quenched.  It  was  all  an  affair  of  Jesus 
ceternus  Jilius  Dei,  or  Jesus  Jilius  mterni  Dei.  I 
do  not  think,  however,  that  he  makes  enough  of 
the  Christian  charity  of  Calvin,  who  plead  for 
the  heretic  the  gentle  courtesy  of  the  ax,  rather 
than  the  extreme  penalty,  estre  hrusle  tout  vyfz. 

It  is  only  fair  to  remark  that  it  was  the  authors 
of  the  Gospels  and  not  Paul  who  fully  elaborated 


296  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

this  theory.  He  knew  nothing  of  those  writings, 
and  makes  no  reference  to  their  authority.  His 
description  of  the  Last  Supper  may  be  drawn 
from  an  earlier  source  ;  it  may  have  been  received 
from  one  who  was  actually  present  at  the  meal. 
Paul  never  went  so  far  as  to  elevate  Jesus  to  an 
equality  with  God.  The  utmost  he  conceded  was 
that  he  was  higher  than  the  angels.  It  was  left 
for  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  to 
force  into  Christianity  the  Alexandrine  concep- 
tion that  the  world  was  created  by  the  Son  of 
God.  That  made  it  easy  for  the  writer  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  to  declare  in  his  pi'ologue,  "  In 
the  beginning  was  the  logos,  and  the  logos  was 
with  God,  and  the  logos  was  a  god." 

This  bold  declaration  served  a  double  pur- 
pose. It  reduced  the  intermediary  beings  from  a 
heavenly  host  of  angels  to  one,  and  strengthened 
the  belief  in  Jesus,  as  one  "  who  verily  was  fore- 
ordained before  the  foundation  of  the  world,  but 
was  manifest  in  these  last  times  for  you."  It 
squared  with  the  Semitic  belief  that  the  Messiah 
eternally  dwelt  with  God,  and  that  his  appear- 
ance was  merely  a  transition  from  concealment 
to  publicity.  The  temple  itself  was  in  heaven. 
Moses  saw  it  when  he  was  on  the  Mount,  and  its 
appearance  on  earth  was  merely  the  result  of  a 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     297 

revelation.  A  heavenly  origin  was  also  secured 
for  the  patriarchs,  the  law^,  the  church,  indeed 
for  all  things  of  real  value.  They  were  hidden 
with  God  until  the  time  of  their  appearance  was 
fulfilled.  According  to  this  theory  Jesus  was  a 
revelation,  not  an  incarnation,  and  the  difficult 
question  was  settled  as  to  what  became  of  his 
body  when  he  ascended  to  heaven. 

Nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than  putting 
Paul  to  the  question  about  matters  of  which  he 
had  no  knowledge.  There  is  no  hint  in  his  letters 
that  he  had  been  informed  that  Jesus  ascended 
up  into  heaven.  Those  writings  which  are  so  fa- 
miliar to  us  under  the  name  of  Gospels  and  Acts 
were  not  open  to  his  view,  and  upon  only  one 
possible  occasion  does  he  refer  to  their  contents. 
He  knew  nothing  of  a  risen  Jesus  who  eat  fish, 
expounded  doctrine,  passed  through  closed  doors, 
and  upbraided  the  eleven  for  their  hardness  of 
heart  and  disbelief  that  he  had  risen.  Neither, 
we  must  admit,  was  he  baffled,  as  we  are,  by  the 
contradictory  accounts  which  are  given  by  Luke 
and  John,  the  one  affirming  that  the  ascension  took 
place  upon  the  day  of  the  resurrection,  the  other 
that  the  event  was  delayed  for  forty  days.  Both 
accounts  cannot  be  correct,  and  the  discrepancy 
suggests  the  suspicion  that  both  may  be  inaccurate. 


298  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  comprehend  that  wears  the 
Gentiles  of  whom  Jesus  and  the  disciples  spoke. 
Neither  he  nor  they  thought  much  about  us.  And 
yet  all  Protestant  Gentiles  habitually  think  of 
themselves  as  Jews.  We  have  incorporated  into 
ourselves  the  hatreds  of  the  Maccabees,  and  cast 
about  for  some  object  upon  which  those  passions 
may  expend  themselves.  We  hear  read  that  lovely 
lyric  of  the  captivity  in  which  the  exile  sits  and 
weeps  by  the  river  of  Babylon,  whilst  song  and 
mirth  is  required  of  him.  For  him  there  is  some 
excuse  for  the  utterance  of  that  fearful  impreca- 
tion upon  his  tormentor  and  oppressor,  "Happy 
shall  he  be  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones 
against  the  stones."  For  us  there  is  none ;  and  yet 
we  make  the  curse  our  own,  and  strive  for  some 
object  upon  which  it  may  expend  itself.  In  default 
of  oppressor  and  tormentor  there  is  no  other  than 
some  rival  sect;  and  this  Hebrew  bitterness  is 
poured  out  upon  Catholic,  Episcopalian,  or  Pres- 
byterian, as  the  case  may  be.  This  Hebraic  frame 
of  mind  persists  because  traditional  Christianity 
is  cast  in  a  Jewish  mould. 

V 

The  Greeks  before  long  had  a  system  of  reli- 
gion which  they  could  comprehend  by  reason  of 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY    299 

its  mysteriousness.  Christianity  had  been  subli- 
mated into  a  more  elaborate  mystery  than  their 
own  Eleusinian  rites ;  yet  both  were  expressed  in 
the  same  terms,  or,  at  least,  in  terms  which  were 
interchangeable.  Symbolism,  ritual,  ceremonial, 
and  highly  dramatized  representation  was  the  only 
method  by  which  the  Greeks  could  enter  into  the 
meaning  of  religious  truth.  After  six  centuries 
their  religious  performance  had  grown  so  extrava- 
gant and  unreal  that  it  lost  its  power  over  the  ima- 
gination and  the  life.  They  yearned  for  something 
new,  for  a  "  restatement,"  as  their  young  preach- 
ers doubtless  expressed  the  need.  Amongst  the 
sect  of  the  Nazarenes,  now  expanded  into  the  com- 
mimity  of  the  Christians,  they  found  the  new  thing 
which  they  desired. 

At  the  outset  of  the  Christian  ceremonial 
the  Greeks  encountered  a  process  of  purification 
by  washing  in  the  running  water  of  a  sacred 
river,  devised  by  one  who  was  known  as  the  Bap- 
tist. They  did  not  know  what  it  signified;  and 
even  Professor  Harnack  confesses  that  no  one  yet 
understands  what  was  meant  by  the  baptism  of 
John.  It  was  foreign  to  Jewish  ritual.  Jesus  him- 
self did  not  baptize,  Paul  was  sent  to  preach, 
not  to  perform  ceremonies:  and  he  thanks  God 
that  he  had  baptized  none  of  the  Corinthians, 


300  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

save  Galus,  and  Crispus,  and  the  household  of 
Stephanas. 

The  utmost  we  can  say  is  that  the  baptism  of 
John  was  a  baptism  to  repentance  in  contradis- 
tinction with  the  baptism  performed  in  the  name 
of  Jesus,  which  was  a  baptism  of  forgiveness,  per- 
formed upon  adults  alone  with  consecrated  water, 
that  is,  with  water  from  which  the  evil  spirits 
which  infested  all  material  things  had  been  ban- 
ished. But  presently  the  idea  of  forgiveness  dis- 
appeared. There  was  no  longer  any  miraculous 
communication  of  the  spirit,  and  the  rite  became 
rather  a  guarantee  of  a  blessing  than  a  bless- 
ing in  itself,  a  means  by  which  "enlightenment" 
might  come.  The  very  word  suggests  that  we  are 
now  upon  Greek  ground.  To  the  Greeks  it  would 
suggest  the  initiatory  rite  by  which  entrance  was 
gained  into  the  lesser  mysteries,  a  purification  by 
bathing  in  a  stream  under  the  ministration  of  the 
hydranos^  the  bather  or  sprinkler. 

Entrance  into  the  greater  mystery  was  not  per- 
mitted until  a  year  later,  and  the  ceremony  took 
place  in  the  city  after  a  solemn  procession  and 
formal  cleansing  of  the  temple.  The  Greeks  had 
heard  that  the  public  ministry  of  Jesus  had  occu- 
pied an  exact  year,  and  that  he  did  not  go  up  to 
the  sacred  city  until  nine  days  before  its  expi- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     301 

ration.  They  had  read  of  the  great  procession 
in  which  "  multitudes  went  before  and  followed 
after"  him,  and  that  upon  his  arrival  in  Jerusa- 
lem he  purified  the  temple.  They  could  not  fail  to 
notice  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark  that  expression  so 
strange  to  us,  and  still  more  strange  on  account 
of  its  omission  from  all  the  later  Gospels :  "  He 
would  not  suffer  that  any  man  should  carry  a  vessel 
through  the  temple";  and  they  would  remember 
that  it  was  to  the  entrants  alone  into  the  priest- 
hood of  Demeter  that  it  was  permitted  to  carry 
the  sacred  vessel  and  repeat  the  formula,  "  I  have 
borne  the  kernos.^^ 

At  Athens  there  was  a  sacred  fig-tree  at  which 
the  procession  halted,  and  they  had  read  that  Jesus, 
returning  from  Bethany  on  the  second  day,  saw 
a  fig-tree  afar  off,  and  rested  in  its  shade.  These 
simple-minded  heathen,  in  their  ignorance  of  Jew- 
ish polemics,  could  not  comprehend  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  incident  and  of  the  curse  which  was 
laid  upon  the  innocent  tree ;  that  it  was  in  reality 
an  oblique  condemnation  of  Israel  and  not  a  mere 
manifestation  of  truculence  in  a  moment  of  dis- 
appointment and  the  temporary  irritation  of  hun- 
ger. The  ceremony  of  purification  was  also  familiar 
to  them,  and  there  would  be  nothing  strange  in 
the  incident  of  Jesus  washing  the  disciples'  feet, 


302  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

or  of  tlie  earlier  account  of  the  "  man  bearing  a 
pitcher  of  water." 

In  the  account  of  the  infant  lying  in  the 
manger  until  he  was  "  found  "  by  the  shepherds, 
they  would  see  an  analogy  of  the  old  rite  in  which 
at  midnight  in  the  shortest  day  of  the  year  the 
women  went  forth  to  the  mountain-side  and  found 
the  new-born  god,  Licnites,  cradled  in  a  winnow- 
ing-sieve.  In  the  cry  of  the  Baptist,  "  Behold  the 
lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world,"  they  might  well  recall  the  sacred  fleece 
which  was  laid  upon  the  feet  of  sinners,  when 
their  sins  had  been  washed  away,  —  the  emblem 
of  lacchus,  the  redeeming  god. 

In  the  incident  of  the  marriage-feast  at  Kana- 
Galilee,  an  educated  Greek  would  find  a  replica  of 
the  feast  of  Kalligeneia,  the  "  mother  of  the  fair 
child."  So  far  as  we  can  learn,  there  was  no  place 
in  Galilee  by  the  name  of  Kana.  The  "  mother 
of  the  fair  child"  would  appear  to  him  to  be 
identical  with  the  mother  of  Jesus,  who  is  twice 
mentioned  as  being  present  at  the  feast;  and  the 
"  drawers-up "  of  the  wine  would  be  a  forcible 
reminder  of  the  "  drawers-up"  in  the  earlier  cere- 
mony. In  the  miracle  of  the  herd  of  swine  which 
ran  violently  down  a  steep  place  into  the  lake 
and  were  choked,  he  would  recognize  the  entomb- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     303 

ing  of  pigs  during  the  festival  of  the  Thesmo- 
phoria. 

Nor  would  the  Greeks  find  the  Last  Supper  of 
the  Gospels  an  innovation.  They  could  not  under- 
stand what  Jesus  meant  when  he  said :  "  I  am  the 
living  manna  which  came  down  from  Heaven " ; 
but  his  sudden  transference  of  thought  to  the 
idea  of  drink  would  remind  them  of  their  own 
common  meal  upon  the  fifth  day  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian  mysteries,  at  which  the  celebrants  partook 
together  of  a  mixture  compounded  of  barley-meal 
and  water,  which  was  so  thickened  as  to  be  at 
once  food  and  drink. 

The  most  solemn  part  of  their  ceremony  was 
"the  handing  over  of  the  holy  things,"  one  of 
which  was  a  sesame  cake  ;  and  they  had  read  in 
Mark  that  Jesus,  having  blessed  the  unleavened 
bread,  broke  it,  and  said  simply,  "  Take  ye."  Pos- 
sibly they  were  not  acquainted  with  the  later  for- 
mula given  by  Matthew,  "  Take,  eat,  this  is  my 
body,"  and  consequently  they  would  not  be  mysti- 
fied by  the  innovation.  Also  in  the  account  of  the 
Last  Supper  as  recorded  by  Luke  there  is  men- 
tion of  two  cups.  The  one  was  used  before  supper 
with  the  words,  "  Take  this,  and  divide  it  among 
yourselves."  The  second  cup  was  used  after  the 
food  had  been  eaten,  as  was  the  custom  amongst 


304  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

celebrants  proceeding  to  the  higher  stages  in  the 
mysteries.  It  was  at  a  comparatively  late  period 
that  this  handing  over  of  the  elements  was  inter- 
preted as  a  handing  over  or  betrayal  of  Jesus ; 
and  it  came  about  from  the  fact  that  the  same 
word  in  Greek  as  well  as  in  English  is  used  to 
express  the  two  different  ideas  of  betrayal  and 
handing  over.  In  the  more  specific  account  of  the 
betrayal  we  are  told  that  one  of  the  disciples 
kissed  Jesus  fervently,  not  with  the  kiss  of  a 
traitor,  but  "  again  and  again,"  as  a  lover  would. 
To  us  Judas  is  the  arch-traitor ;  to  the  Greeks 
he  may  well  have  been  the  analogue  of  the  priest 
who  handed  over  the  most  sacred  of  all  things. 
Even  the  linen  cloth  is  not  wanting  in  which 
the  precious  thing  might  be  wrapped  ;  for  do  we 
not  read  of  that  certain  young  man  who,  having 
a  linen  cloth  cast  about  his  naked  body,  left  the 
linen  cloth  and  fled  from  them  naked  ? 

A  more  obvious  resemblance  to  their  own  reli- 
gion which  the  Greeks  would  find  in  Chi'istianity 
was  in  the  jesting  and  reviling  to  which  the  en- 
trants were  subjected,  as  they  went  through  the 
streets  crowned  with  myrtle,  a  fawn-skin  over  the 
shoulders,  and  a  staff  in  the  hand.  Jesus,  they 
read,  had  been  clad  in  a  scarlet  robe ;  a  wreath 
of  acanthus  was  placed  upon  his  head ;  a  reed 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     305 

was  put  in  his  hand;  and  he  was  mocked  and 
reviled.  At  this  time  it  had  not  occurred  to  the 
Jews  that  the  casting  of  lots  and  the  scourging 
were  indulged  in  merely  that  "the  scriptures 
might  be  fulfilled."  That  discovery  was  made 
only  by  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The 
Greeks  would  find  in  it  a  reference  to  the  small 
bones  of  their  own  mysteries,  which  were  used 
singly  as  dice  for  gaming,  and  as  a  scourge  when 
strung  together.  The  last  words  which  Jesus  ut- 
tered would  convey  to  a  Greek  who  had  attained 
to  the  highest  place  in  the  mysteries  the  same 
meaning  which  was  implied  by  his  own  words : 
"All  has  been  performed;  the  consecration  is 
complete." 

To  the  Jews  the  crucifixion  was  the  great  stum- 
bling-block. To  the  Greeks  it  was  possible  to 
explain  it  in  a  symbolical  and  figurative  sense. 
Indeed  the  word  employed  by  the  writers  of  the 
Gospels  to  signify  "  crucify  "  signified  in  classi- 
cal Greek  to  enclose  with  palisades,  to  set  apart, 
to  fence,  to  consecrate.  This  is  the  word  in  that 
passage  from  "  Empedocles  on  Etna,"  which  Mat- 
thew Arnold  renders : 

"  Thou  keepest  aloof  the  profane.  .  .  . 
Thou  fencest  him  from  the  multitude  — 
Who  will/ewce  him  from  himself?  " 


306  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

Finally,  the  sacred  place  of  Demeter  was  in 
"a  grove";  it  was  hewn  out  of  "a  rock,"  and 
was  known  as  the  cell  or  sepulchre.  In  the  mys- 
teries, "  a  memento  "  was  given  to  the  votaries, 
who  kept  it  "  in  a  linen  cloth  "  ;  and  they  could 
read  of  that  counsellor  who  "  bought  fine  linen, 
and  took  him  down,  and  wrapped  him  in  the  linen, 
and  laid  him  in  a  memorial  place  which  had  been 
hewn  out  of  a  rock."  This  is  the  account  which 
Mark  gives,  and  the  writings  of  Matthew  may  not 
then  have  been  extant,  in  which  "memorial  place  " 
is  in  our  translation  made  to  read  "  tomb." 

I  have  thought  well  to  set  forth  this  subtle  exe- 
gesis at  some  length  by  availing  myself  freely  of 
Mr.  Slade  Butler's  adroit  scholarship,^  his  clever- 
ness in  contriving  analogies,  and  dexterity  in 
devising  expedients,  so  that  nothing  now  remains 
to  be  said,  save  this :  that  a  picturesque  and  fan- 
tastic allegorizing  of  an  event  does  not  convey  an 
intimation  that  the  event  had  not  really  occurred. 
On  the  contrary,  it  rather  adds  certainty  that 
Jesus  was  "lifted  up,"  and  in  virtue  of  that  draws 
all  men  unto  him. 

When  Judaistic  Christianity  emerged  in  its 
nebulous  form  from  the  Greek  mind,  fortunately 
it  fell  under  the  domination  of  the  Roman  idea  of 

1  Nineteenth  Century,  March,  1905  ;  December,  1906. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     307 

law  and  order.  It  passed  over  from  the  hungry 
Greeklings,  as  Juvenal  describes  the  inhabitants  of 
Corinth,  to  the  stalwart  Romans  of  Philippi,  whom 
Paul  loved  above  all  his  converts.  From  these  alone 
would  he  receive  any  contribution  to  his  support, 
preferring  to  labour  with  his  own  hands  rather 
than  accept  favours  from  the  supple  Greeks. 

A  closer  organization  of  the  church  was  the  first 
effect  of  the  Roman  influence,  and  with  it  went 
the  hardening  of  enthusiasm  into  a  creed.  It  is  a 
mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that  the  church  at 
any  time  has  ever  deliberately  formulated  a  creed. 
Occasionally,  as  a  measure  of  defence,  it  has  been 
compelled  to  define  its  position  within  closer  lines. 
The  Nicene  Creed  was  directed  against  the  Arians ; 
the  Heidelberg  Catechism  was  meant  to  exclude 
Catholics,  as  the  creed  of  Pius  IV  was  meant  to 
exclude  Protestants,  and  the  Westminster  Con- 
fession the  Arminians. 

Jesus  founded  no  church  and  consequently  re- 
quired no  creed ;  but  at  the  earliest  moment  in 
which  the  first  germ  of  a  church  is  discovered  we 
are  inevitably  faced  with  the  dogma :  extra  eccle- 
siam  nulla  solus.  Originally  all  that  was  required 
was  an  openness  of  mind  so  that  the  spirit  of  God 
might  gain  an  entrance ;  and  Paul  himself  in  the 
outset  demanded  nothing  more  than  this.  But  in 


308  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

no  long  time  we  find  him  making  salvation  to  de- 
pend upon  belief  in  certain  doctrines :  that  Jesus 
is  the  Lord  ;  that  he  was  raised  up  from  the  dead ; 
and,  eventually,  that  one  must  have  faith  in  a 
theoretical  explanation  of  the  resurrection.  With 
much  labour  and  with  many  devices  of  metaphor 
and  allegory  Paul  welded  Christ  and  the  church 
into  a  unity.  He  set  up  justification  by  faith  in 
opposition  to  Jewish  justification  by  works,  ordi- 
nances, and  observances.  He  formulated  a  new 
legal  conception  to  supplant  the  older  legalism. 
Before  the  end  he  had  furnished  the  church  with 
a  full  set  of  dogmatic  propositions :  that  Jesus  was 
the  Son  of  God,  that  he  died  and  rose  from  the  dead, 
that  he  would  come  again  in  the  near  future,  that 
in  the  meantime  he  was  sitting  at  the  right  hand 
of  God  above  the  angels,  and  that  he  was  the  sub- 
ject of  all  prophecy.  By  assent  to  these  doctrines 
salvation  was  alone  to  be  assured.  Probably  the 
writer  of  the  Acts  went  too  far  when  he  ascribed 
a  vicarious  value  to  such  belief,  by  which  a  man's 
household  as  well  as  himself  might  be  saved. 

To  this  Pauline  doctrine  —  died,  buried,  rose 
on  the  third  day  —  the  writers  of  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  added  still  more  debatable  matter :  of 
the  House  of  David,  under  Pontius  Pilate,  who 
shall  come  to  judge  the  c[uick  and  the  dead.  The 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     309 

descent  into  Hades  appears  definitely  only  in  the 
First  Epistle  of  Peter.  The  virgin  birth,  with  the 
Davidic  genealogy  of  Mary,  came  into  the  canon 
only  in  sub-apostolic  times. 

Concurrently  with  the  development  of  dogma 
went  the  firmer  organization  of  the  church  to 
make  it  more  effective ;  and  as  early  as  the  date 
of  the  Epistle  of  John  the  mark  of  the  Christian 
was  already  declared  to  be  abiding  in  the  tradi- 
tion. The  place  of  Jesus  was  forgotten.  Instead 
of  reading,  as  we  may  in  the  first  letter  to  the 
Corinthians,  "for  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay 
than  that  is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ,"  we  read 
in  the  letter  to  the  Ephesians,  "  are  built  upon 
the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and  prophets." 
Jesus  is  merely  the  "  chief  corner,"  and  presently 
the  apostles  become  the  "  holy  apostles."  * 

In  the  second  century,  when  the  Christian  body 
was  growing  inwardly  cold,  it  became  necessary  to 
strengthen  the  spiritual  force  by  exterior  bonds, 
by  the  authority  of  the  institution  and  of  the 
sacramental  rite.  The  word  of  God  then  yielded 
place  to  the  word  of  the  bishop.  For  faith  in 
Him  was  substituted  the  rule  of  faith ;  for  re- 
pentance and  piety,  the  sacrament ;  discipline  for 
fraternal  love  ;  and  obedience  for  inspiration. 

1  £ph.  iii,  5. 


310  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

The  average  man  will  take  the  easiest  way ; 
and  reliance  upon  an  official  or  a  church  is  much 
easier  than  individual  investigation  of  the  proper 
line  of  conduct.  Newman  chose  the  obvious 
method.  A  more  trivial  instance  is  found  in  a 
letter  which  Mr.  Robert  C.  S.  Bailey  wrote  to  the 
"  Spectator,"  June  5th,  1909.  If  he  were  in  a  situ- 
ation of  difficulty,  such  as  whether  or  not  he 
should  dispense  the  elements  to  a  "  Dissenter," 
he  should  "first  have  consulted  the  Bishop." 
Accordingly,  he  "  should  have  considered  him- 
self bound." 

In  a  similar  way,  common  men  require  some- 
thing external  as  a  guarantee  for  their  salva- 
tion. Hence  they  seize  upon  historic  occurrences 
and  material  things  like  blood,  water,  wine, 
bread ;  and  eventually  a  figment  replaces  the 
reality,  as  the  theological  interpretation  of  the 
blood  of  Christ  was  substituted  for  the  person 
of  Jesus. 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  attempt  of 
Paul  to  find  a  basis  for  the  authority  of  Jesus  in 
Hebrew  prophecy,  we  cannot  remain  blind  to  the 
fact  that  it  saved  the  Old  Testament  for  us,  and 
probably  created  the  New.  By  establishing  the 
foundations  of  Christianity  in  Hebrew  Scripture 
he  rescued  it  from  those  Gnostics  who  with  only 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     311 

a  partial  knowledge  of  its  contents  attributed  its 
authorship  to  Satan. 

It  is  a  reasonable  subject  of  speculation  in 
how  far  we  would  suffer  if  we  had  been  deprived 
of  an  account  of  the  Levitical  ceremonial  and 
Hebraistic  theology.  I  think  the  principal  value 
of  it  is  that  it  has  carried  down  to  us  the  glo- 
rious apostrophes,  the  appeals  for  righteousness, 
which  were  made  by  righteous  men.  I  do  not 
understand  that  the  capacity  to  foretell  the  future 
was  their  principal  claim  to  consideration.  All 
the  prophets  of  Israel  did  not  speak  the  truth, 
as  Jeremiah  discovered ;  and  Ahab  consulted 
four  hundred  of  them,  of  whom  all  but  one  were 
impostors.  As  old  Hobbes  observed,  "  Though 
God  can  speak  to  a  man  by  dreams  and  visions, 
yet  he  obliges  no  man  to  believe  he  hath  done  so 
to  him  that  pretends  it,  who  being  a  man  may 
err,  and  which  is  more,  may  lie."  A  translation 
of  the  Hebrew  text  gradually  took  the  place  of 
Jesus,  and  a  reverence  for  it  was  carried  over 
to  the  Gentiles,  who  found  in  it  new  lessons  of 
morality  and  hope.  The  Old  Testament  became 
a  Christian  book,  and  Christianity,  now  become 
a  book  religion,  must  have  a  book  of  its  own. 

As  the  Apostles  died,  it  was  necessary  to  pre- 
serve the  tradition  which  they  in  turn  had  in- 


312  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

lierited,  and  out  of  this  necessit}'  arose  the  canon 
of  the  scriptures  of  the  New  Testament.  Many 
writings  extant  at  the  formation  of  the  canon 
were  omitted,  and  these  omissions  imply  a  theory 
in  the  minds  of  the  compilers  of  what  the  tradi- 
tion was.  If  such  a  task  fell  to  our  lot  in  these 
days,  a  different  result  might  have  been  achieved. 
We  should  entrust  it  to  a  committee,  and  there 
might  well  be  grave  misgivings  about  the  doc- 
trine which  should  issue  from  its  deliberations. 
A  Council,  composed,  we  shall  say,  of  the  Mod- 
erator of  the  General  Assembly,  the  Primate  of 
England,  Adolf  Harnack,  Auguste  Sabatier,  the 
Bishop  of  Rome,  and  Newell  Dwight  Hillis,  who 
were  charged  with  the  duty  of  writing  in  collabo- 
ration a  life  of  Jesus  from  original  and  authen- 
tic documents,  and  adding  such  other  writings 
as  might  be  considered  helpful  in  understanding 
him,  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  accomplish 
a  finished  product,  no  matter  how  sincere  the 
attempt,  which  would  be  more  satisfactory  than 
that  which  we  now  possess. 

The  labours  of  these  earlier  compilers  have  not 
escaped  criticism.  Luther  could  not  see  that  the 
circular  letter  of  James  to  the  twelve  tribes  was 
anything  but  an  epistle  of  straw,  or  that  the 
Apocalypse  was  more  than  a  political  pamphlet. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     313 

Zwingli  condemned  it  utterly,  and  Calvin  omitted 
it  from  his  Commentary  on  the  Bible.  Nor  is 
such  criticism  entirely  an  affair  of  scholarship. 
Luther  was  no  scholar,  and  yet  he  was  a  most 
trenchant  critic  of  the  received  canon.  There  is 
a  religious  sense,  as  there  is  a  musical  sense,  or  a 
sense  for  the  proper  arrangement  of  words  which 
may  be  found  in  a  dictionary.  It  was  in  virtue 
of  this  religious  genius,  and  not  by  historical 
research  or  classical  learning,  that  Luther  put 
an  end  to  the  juridical  authority  of  the  canon, 
and  to  that  juristico-scholastic  system  of  theology 
which  had  grown  up  as  a  result  of  its  interpre- 
tation by  professional  divines. 

If  Paul  himself  had  had  a  hand  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  canon,  it  is  entirely  probable  that  the 
result  would  have  been  somewhat  different.  In 
his  argument  he  says  repeatedly,  "  It  is  written," 
and  we  cannot  find  the  place.  In  the  Pastoral 
Epistle  of  Jude  also,  there  are  references  to 
prophecies  with  which  Protestants  at  least  are 
not  furnished  in  their  Bible.  The  writer  of  the 
Second  Epistle  of  Peter,  who  for  some  reason 
incorporates  in  his  own  the  earlier  letter  of  Jude, 
was  keen  enough  to  notice  the  discrepancy,  and 
carefully  omitted  the  reference  to  the  extra- 
canonical  books. 


314  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

I  am  not  valuing  more  lightly  than  I  ought  the 
results  of  scholarship  and  research.  There  are 
certain  aspects  of  Jesus,  more  interesting  than 
important,  it  is  true,  which  we  would  fail  entirely 
to  apprehend,  did  we  not  know  that  he  belonged 
to  the  Semitic  family,  that  he  was  born  at  a 
certain  period  in  the  world's  history,  and  lived 
in  Lower  Asia.  By  his  race  we  shall  explain  the 
non-speculative  character  of  his  mind.  In  virtue 
of  that,  he  was  content  to  unite  man  with  him  as 
he  was  united  with  God,  and  did  not  trouble  him- 
self or  them  with  any  theoretical  explanation  of 
the  process.  He  united  man  to  man  by  the  simple 
injunction  of  love  to  one's  neighbour.  He  knew 
God  as  the  son  knows  the  father,  and  not  by  that 
abstract  knowledge  after  which  the  Greeks  were 
continually  striving.  He  had  no  theory  of  salva- 
tion. That  was  left  for  Paul.  He  had  thought 
only  for  the  individual.  Paul  was  concerned  for 
the  church,  whilst  Jesus  strove  to  free  religion 
from  all  entanglement  with  the  contingent,  as 
George  Tyrrell,  dead  too  soon,  so  broadly  de- 
scribes his  mission.  The  very  prayer  which  he 
taught  to  his  disciples  is  a  practical  Jewish 
prayer.  The  conditions  under  which  he  lived,  in 
a  word  the  politics  of  Palestine,  must  be  under- 
stood, if  one  would  realize  how  true  it  is  that  he 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     315 

came  in  the  fulness  of  time.  To  explain  that,  is 
the  business  of  the  scholar. 

None  but  Jesus  could  understand  himself.  His 
disciples  and  the  apostles  who  came  after  pro- 
ceeded to  offer  their  own  explanation.  In  any 
consideration  of  the  history  of  early  Christianity, 
if  we  forget  that  Jesus  is  dead,  that  he  no  longer 
speaks  to  us  even  through  the  confused  intelli- 
gence of  his  reporters,  then  we  are  lost.  We  are 
in  reality  dealing  with  the  impressions  and  opin- 
ions which  ignorant  and  sinful  men  entertained 
of  his  nature  and  work ;  and  they  have  left  on 
every  page  of  their  writings  evidence  of  how 
sadly  they  misunderstood.  There  is  not  extant 
any  record  made  by  Jesus  himself  or  by  any  of 
those  who  walked  with  him.  We  need  not  lament 
too  bitterly  that  these  Galilean  fishermen  set 
down  nothing  with  their  own  hand.  Writing  is  a 
work  of  art,  and  no  writer,  however  skilled,  can 
tell  the  truth  about  a  person  whom  he  does  not 
understand.  By  the  increased  authority  which 
such  documents  would  have,  we  should  the  more 
surely  be  led  astray. 

It  is  one  of  the  little  ironies  of  history  that 
Protestantism  has  become  the  last  refuge  of 
dogma.  A  book-religion  is  written  in  a  book  once 
for  all,  wherein  all  may  read.    In  the  Catholic 


316  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

church  a  new  dogma  may  be  promulgated  at  any 
moment,  which  may  affect  the  old;  indeed,  as  late 
as  July  18th,  1870,  such  a  dogma  was  added  to 
the  faith.  If  a  Protestant  ask,  "  What  is  truth  ?  " 
he  is  referred  to  a  book.  A  Catholic  has  for 
reply  the  teaching  of  the  church,  and  he  would 
be  a  bold  man  who  should  say  what  the  teaching 
of  the  church  really  is,  upon  any  given  question. 
There  is  nothing  which  the  Catholic  church  hates 
so  much  as  being  obliged  to  define  or  affirm 
everything  which  must  be  believed.  When  a 
dogma  is  wrested  from  her  by  force,  she  qualifies 
it  by  whole  and  half  dogmas,  directions,  opin- 
ions, and  doctrinal  propositions,  by  which  it  is 
rendered  innocuous.  The  church  is  reluctant 
about  asking  a  man  to  believe  more  than  is  ne- 
cessary. To  a  Christianity  which  presupposes  a 
personal  experience  which  has  an  important  bear- 
ing upon  disposition,  conduct,  and  character,  the 
Catholic  church  has  added  a  ritualistic  Chris- 
tianity of  sacraments,  ceremonial,  and  obedience  ; 
whilst  Protestantism  insists  upon  an  intellectual 
Christianity  in  which  knowledge  supplants  faith, 
and  doctrine  replaces  living  experience.  Catho- 
lics and  Protestants  are  both  right,  and  they  are 
both  wrong. 

To  critics  skulking  oa  the  outskirts  of  litera- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     317 

ture,  and  knowing  little  about  theology  and  less 
about  God,  it  is  only  too  congenial  a  task 
launching  their  clumsy  shafts  against  phantoms. 
Ignorant  of  history,  they  are  unaware  that  the 
doctrine  of  the  three-one  and  the  one-three  was 
of  vital  importance  when  the  one-God  idea  was 
struggling  with  polytheism ;  that  the  tenets  of 
Arius  were  opposed  because,  if  they  had  pre- 
vailed, the  Pantheon  would  again  have  been  in- 
troduced into  the  official  religion  of  the  Empire ; 
that  an  acceptance  of  Gnosticism  would  have 
dissipated  into  abstract  thought  the  person  of 
Jesus;  that  in  the  contest  against  Montanisra  it 
was  a  question  of  order  against  anarchy ;  that  the 
mediaeval  Papacy,  with  all  its  theoretical  imper- 
fections, was  on  that  very  account  the  better 
means  of  keeping  the  church  together  in  the  face 
of  barbarian  conquest,  of  spreading  civilization, 
and  carrying  the  spirit  over  the  dreary  wastes 
through  the  thick  darkness  of  those  ages. 

The  value  of  the  various  theories  of  God  was 
incalculable  in  the  times  in  which  they  prevailed. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  was  vitally  important. 
Men  had  trusted  so  long  in  a  multiplicity  of  gods, 
that  it  was  asking  too  much  of  them  to  put  their 
faith  in  one.  They  were  offered  a  trinity  of  gods 
as  a  compromise  ;  and  monotheism  was  appeased 


318  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

by  the  suggestion  that  three  in  reality  means  one. 
The  attempt  to  steer  a  course  between  Sabellian- 
ism,  that  is  the  consubstantial  unity  of  the  Father 
and  the  Son,  and  Arianism,  which  implies  that 
the  Son  is  not  co-unbegotten  with  the  Father  and 
unoriginate,  was  really  a  successful  effort  in  the 
same  direction.  The  struggle  against  Gnosticism 
was  in  reality  an  attempt  to  save  the  humanity 
of  Jesus  from  those  who  would  make  of  him  a 
process  of  thought.  By  gathering  itself  together, 
opposing,  cursing,  persecuting  those  who  would 
destroy  it,  the  mediaeval  Papacy  maintained  the 
very  existence  of  a  religious  organization.  In  ex- 
actly the  same  spirit  the  Pastoral  and  Johannine 
Epistles  were  directed  against  heretical  teachers, 
such  as  those  at  Colossae,  who  boasted  of  their 
Jewish  circumcision,  their  Greek  philosophy, 
and  ascetic  practices. 

The  theological  devil  has  always  been  the 
"  enemy  "  who  sows  tares,  who  instills  intellectual 
doubts  of  the  complete  efficacy  of  any  ecclesiasti- 
cal system.  That  is  the  meaning  of  the  plaintive 
enquiry  which  Paul  addressed  to  the  Galatians  : 
"  Am  I  become  the  enemy  because  I  speak  the 
truth?  "  In  this  there  is  a  fine  subtlety  of  insight, 
since  abstract  thought,  detached  from  the  reality 
of  things  as  they  are,  and  carried  to  its  absolute 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     319 

conclusion,  would  decree  not  only  the  extinction 
of  any  system,  but  of  the  race  which  it  is  intended 
to  serve.  In  this  sure  instinct  lies  the  ultimate 
motive  for  the  persecution  of  new  ideas. 

A  foolish  and  ignorant  person  who  follows  the 
controversy  which  raged  for  four  centuries  be- 
tween the  homousians  and  the  homoiusians ;  the 
pneumatomachians,  Athanasians,  and  theopaschi- 
tians ;  between  those  who  held  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  hypostasis  and  those  who  fastened  their  sal- 
vation from  hell  to  the  exhypostasis  ;  between  the 
rival  heresies  of  aphthartodoketism  and  phtharto- 
latry,  may  suppose  this  is  a  horrible  jargon  taken 
from  the  pages  of  Dean  Swift.  Such  an  one  is  a 
foolish  and  ignorant  person,  because  he  does  not 
see  that  by  a  successful  issue  from  these  contro- 
versies the  church  preserved  itself  and  civilization 
at  the  same  time.  To  transpose  these  mutations 
of  theological  opinion  to  our  own  time  is  like 
an  attempt  to  revive  the  Heptarchy.  And  yet 
it  is  not  more  than  two  years  since  I  read  a  new 
book,  —  why,  I  cannot  now  say,  —  by  a  Protest- 
ant too,  upon  the  Christophany,  the  theophany, 
the  pneumatophany,  the  basilophany,  the  Satan- 
ophany,  and  the  pseudo-prophetophany,  —  words 
which  a  man  may  read,  and  also  write,  without 
the  faintest  Idea  of  their  meaning  for  us. 


320  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

VI 

The  Image  of  erudition  whicli  I  have  created 
out  of  these  various  shreds  and  scraps  of  learn- 
ing, which  any  one  may  pick  up  at  random,  will 
not  in  the  face  of  this  warning  deceive  even  the 
least  experienced.  It  is  merely  a  method  of  pre- 
sentation which  goes  well  with  a  fragmentary  way 
of  thinking.  I  propose  now  to  apply  to  present 
conditions  the  considerations  which  have  been  put 
forward.  I  can  make  no  sanguine  prediction  as 
to  the  result  of  my  effort ;  and  if  I  am  too  igno- 
rant to  come  to  a  rational  conclusion,  I  am  also 
too  obstinate  to  desist. 

I  have  said  that  religion  cannot  exist  without 
at  least  an  implied  theology.  It  would  be  nearly 
as  true  to  say  that  religion  cannot  exist  side  by 
side  with  theology.  When  theology  flourishes, 
religion  fails.  Every  minister  expelled  from  his 
pulpit,  or  professor  from  his  chair,  for  anything 
but  evil  living,  is  a  triumph  for  theology  and  a 
defeat  for  religion.  This  contrariety  of  expression 
will  appear  strange  only  to  those  who  never  get 
near  enough  to  the  truth  to  see  something  of  its 
other  side.  If  we  could  understand  the  paradox 
of  the  world,  we  should  be  as  gods  and  not  as 
men.  "  Theology  has  killed  religion,"  Paul  Saba- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     321 

tier  laments.  He  is  wrong.  When  the  pressure 
becomes  too  great,  religion  bursts  theology  in 
pieces.  The  secret  of  Jesus  is  in  the  habit  of  los- 
ing itself  under  an  accumulation  of  theological 
rubbish,  where  it  remains  to  be  re-discovered  by 
men  like  Paul,  St.  Augustine,  St.  Francis,  and 
Wesley.  That  is  their  value  to  humanity,  to  us. 
Not  for  their  theology,  but  because,  as  Professor 
Harnack  says,  they  remind  the  world  that  such 
an  one  as  Jesus  once  lived.  In  doing  that  they 
supersede  all  systems,  their  own  among  the  rest. 
No  system  of  theology  has  ever  won  attention 
which  did  not  recognize  that  all  previous  sys- 
tems had  arisen  as  a  product  and  expression  of 
the  experience  and  need  of  the  time;  and  that 
itself  is  vital  only  in  so  far  as  it  reflects  the  life 
in  which  it  lives.  Accordingly,  theology  is  not 
a  catalogue  of  obsolete  abstractions,  as  Newman 
supposed  it  to  be  ;  or  a  successful  endeavour  on 
the  part  of  men  to  bewilder  themselves  method- 
ically, s'egarer  avec  methode,  as  Michelet  says ; 
or  an  attempt  to  find  their  way  in  a  cloud  of  dust 
which  they  themselves  had  raised.  It  is  an  at- 
tempt to  find  out  the  meaning  of  life.  If  life  has 
no  meaning,  theology  is  a  futile  speculation  about 
nothing.  When  the  soul  has  no  concern  for  its 
own  existence,  and  men  do  not  care  whether  life 


322  ESSAYS   IN  FALLACY 

has  any  meaning  or  not,  they  will  not  care  for 
theology  either. 

Religion,  theology,  and  ecclesiasticism  are  three 
different  things ;  and  neither  theologians  nor 
ecclesiastics  have  apprehended  that  simple  fact, 
though  it  is  not  impossible  that  a  man  may  unite 
all  three  in  his  own  person  as  Paul  did,  as  Jesus 
did  not.  But  in  Paul  we  miss  the  starved  religious 
temperament  and  the  dryness  of  heart  which  is 
common  to  ecclesiastics  as  a  class.  Their  claim 
to  be  considered  Christians  has  usually  been  that 
they  were  persecutors,  whilst  he  had  an  inward 
experience ;  although  he  too  had  been  an  eccle- 
siastic and  a  persecutor  at  the  same  time.  The 
essential  thing  with  him  was  this  inward  change 
by  which,  through  the  exercise  of  the  will,  a  man 
undergoes  a  complete  and  radical  conversion, 
wrests  himself  from  the  power  of  sin,  and  puts 
himself  on  the  side  of  God,  with  a  new  light  in 
the  eyes  and  fresh  courage  in  the  heart.  In  this 
Paul  was  of  the  mind  of  Jesus  and  of  all  religious 
men.  It  was  to  this  experience  Luther  appealed. 
That  is  also  the  meaning  of  Wesley's  doctrine  of 
grace,  by  which  the  will  is  renewed  and  faith 
aroused.  It  is  the  meaning,  too,  of  assurance  of 
justification,  which  is  the  knowledge  that  all 
inner  discord  is  at  an  end  throujrh  the  attain- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     323 

ment  of  peace  in  God,  joy  in  Him,  and  love  to 
all  men.  Erasmus  describes  this  experience  in  a 
word  :  "  The  sum  of  religion  is  peace." 

Paul's  theology  can  be  understood  only  if  it  is 
read  in  that  light  which  shined  round  about  him 
as  he  journeyed  from  Jerusalem  to  Damascus. 
It  is  merely  an  attempt  to  elucidate  the  mystery 
of  simplicity,  and  continually  he  breaks  away 
from  his  argument  to  enforce  the  new  command- 
ment :  God  is  love,  God  loved  the  world,  Love  one 
another,  We  love  Him  because  He  first  loved  us, 
Be  ye  followers  of  God  as  dear  children,  walking 
in  love  as  God  loved  you.  That  was  the  essen- 
tial of  his  preaching.  He  must  have  been  con- 
scious of  the  many  fallacies  in  his  own  theology 
when  he  turned  upon  it  with  the  contemptuous 
admission :  "  Though  I  speak  with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels,  and  have  not  love,  I  am 
become  as  sounding  brass,  or  clanging  cymbals." 

The  centre  of  Paul's  theology  was  personal 
religious  experience,  but  he  was  willing  to  rein- 
force it  with  objective  proofs,  with  theories  and 
texts,  conceptions  and  conclusions.  Jesus  was 
not.  He  was  content  to  live.  Also  to  those  noble 
heathen,  the  Stoics,  personal  salvation  was  the 
prime  concern,  and  the  ethical  conception  of 
moral  duties  was  built  upon  that.  In  this  there 


324  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

is  a  warning  to  theologians,  not  to  show  overmuch 
zeal  for  the  last  two  elements  of  that  trinity, 
religion,  theology,  and  the  church,  and  too  little 
for  the  first.  If  all  theologians  had  remembered 
that  warning,  the  world  would  have  been  spared 
much  misery. 

By  means  of  theology  the  collective  spirit  is 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  individual,  and  it  pre- 
serves the  reflections  of  past  generations  upon 
their  religious  experience.  But  when  it  becomes 
cold  in  religious  temperament,  it  not  only  puts 
forward  the  common  and  collective  spirit  as  a 
more  complete  manifestation  of  the  divine  than 
the  spirit  of  the  individual,  but  it  fails  to  see 
that  this  communized  and  collective  spirit  which 
unifies  all  religious  experience  is  not  final.  It 
puts  forward  the  ideas  and  institutions  of  a 
particular  age  as  a  changeless  and  infallible 
rule. 

The  worst  possible  preparation  for  the  ministry 
of  God  is  a  course  of  instruction  confined  to  any 
one  of  the  many  systems  of  theology  which  have 
gained  credence.  It  fixes  the  student's  mind  and 
encourages  him  to  believe  that  he  is  in  possession 
of  the  truth.  He  fails  to  apprehend  that  all  the- 
ologies are  one  theology,  and  that  his  little  bit  is 
only  a  partial  truth  at  best,  and  at  worst  a  false- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     325 

hood.  It  is  exactly  comparable  with  history.  One 
cannot  know  any  without  knowing  all. 

It  was  only  in  his  letters  that  Paul  gave  vent 
to  his  theological  fancies ;  but  he  never  intended 
that  those  casual  epistles  should  be  bound  together 
in  a  book,  as  a  part  of  the  word  of  God.  In  his 
preaching  he  said  little  of  dogmas  and  creeds; 
and  those  who  urge  us  to  leave  them  in  the  back- 
ground or  postpone  their  consideration  till  some 
more  convenient  season  go  too  far,  and  do  not  go 
far  enough.  They  must  explain  their  meaning  in 
the  light  of  the  time  in  which  they  were  created, 
and  the  sense  in  which  they  are  now  disci-edited, 
or  not  mention  them  at  all. 

The  common  expression  is  that  a  man  may 
reject  the  Confession  of  Faith  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  argumentative  and  unsentimental ;  and  the 
Athanasian  Creed  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a  non- 
sympathetic  forgery,  and  yet  be  entitled  to  the 
designation  of  Christian.  This  is  a  valuable  con- 
cession ;  but  I  should  rather  say  that  a  man  who 
did  accept  these  compendiums  of  doctrine  as  a 
complete  revelation  of  the  truth  was  not  a  Chris- 
tian. He  might  be  a  persecutor ;  but  that  is  not, 
in  these  days,  held  to  be  sufficient  warrant,  any 
more  than  it  was  in  the  time  of  Saul  of  Tarsus. 

It  is  the  business  of  theology  to  help  people  in 


326  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

their  efforts  to  believe  what  they  have  always  be- 
lieved, by  making  the  transference  of  thought  to 
new  ideas  so  easy  that  they  do  not  become  aware 
that  the  old  is  entirely  replaced  by  the  new,  as  a 
good  bee-keeper  would  transfer  his  swarm  to  a 
new  hive,  when  the  old  had  become  overcrowded 
or  infected.  In  this  the  theologians  of  our 
generation  have  failed  us.  They  have  allowed  the 
people  to  scatter  in  the  highway,  which  is  not 
a  favourite  resort  for  the  spirit  of  religion ;  or, 
like  obdurate  mariners,  they  held  their  course  too 
long  and  cast  away  the  ship.  The  history  of 
religion  must  take  account  of  the  continuity  of 
human  experience.  Christianity  itself  is  merely  a 
phase  of  human  life,  and  the  various  forms  under 
which  we  see  it  are  merely  phases  of  Christianity. 
This  is  a  business  with  which  religious  men  of  the 
second  class  —  those  who  are  not  really  poets  and 
creators  —  may  profitably  occupy  themselves,  to 
establish  the  identity  of  the  new  with  the  old,  and 
the  unity  of  the  present  with  the  past,  to  bring 
present  knowledge  into  harmony  with  old  sur- 
mise, and  bind  the  ages  each  to  each  in  piety. 

It  is  a  work  of  necessity  and  not  of  piety  alone 
to  save  the  old  theology  by  transforming  its  mean- 
ing into  terms  agreeable  to  the  modern  mind.  In 
this  sense  theology  is  the  most  modern,  the  most 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     327 

advancing,  the  most  vital  of  all  sciences.  And  I 
employ  the  word  "  science "  with  due  delibera- 
tion, having  full  knowledge  of  all  that  is  implied 
by  the  word  to  the  straitest  sect  of  the  scientists. 

Theology  must  be  rewritten  continually,  and 
that  in  terms  of  poetry.  A  new  symbolism  must 
be  created.  The  unknown  author  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  has  shown  us  the  way.  The 
burden  of  his  song  is  that  the  light  of  the  know- 
ledge of  the  glory  of  God,  which  had  shined  in 
men's  hearts,  was  contained  in  earthen  vessels. 
These  might  perish,  but  the  treasure  remained. 
The  old  for  him  had  passed  away.  The  mystical 
powers  of  a  hereditary  priesthood  had  become  too 
vague  and  shadowy.  A  meticulous  observance  of 
the  Jewish  law  no  longer  sufficed  for  the  needs  of 
the  spirit.  He  required  a  stronger  "consolation," 
and  fled  for  refuge  to  lay  hold  upon  the  new  hope 
which  was  set  before  him.  Yet  he  does  not  fail  to 
bear  in  pious  remembrance  that  God  had  spoken 
at  sundry  previous  times,  and  in  divers  manners. 

This  was  the  task  which  Immanuel  Kant  also 
endeavoured  to  perform  for  his  generation.  It  has 
not  yet  been  adequately  done  for  ours.  But  in  his 
day  the  ground  had  not  been  sufficiently  cleared 
for  that  edifice  of  religion,  theology,  and  church 
which  he  strove  to  erect  within  the  bounds   of 


328  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

reason.  His  new  reading,  as  interpreted  by  Pflei- 
derer,  of  the  old  conception  of  justification  by 
atonement  will  serve  as  an  illustration  of  what 
may  be  done  by  an  allegorical  method  of  exegesis : 

All  speculation  begins  with  the  origin  of  evil. 
Paul  had  two  theories,  neither  of  which  is  satis- 
factory, and  the  one  contradicts  the  other.  Kant 
traces  it  to  an  "intelligible  act  of  freedom,"  and 
leaves  it  at  that.  The  problem  now  is  to  transform 
an  evil  disposition  into  a  good  one,  to  awaken  in 
the  mind  the  idea  of  moral  perfection  by  contem- 
plation of  it  as  expressed  in  the  person  of  Jesus. 
But  the  real  object  of  religious  faith  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  historical  Jesus,  but  a  humanity  so  well- 
pleasing  to  God  that  we  may  conceive  of  it  as 
having  come  down  from  heaven.  He  who  believes 
in  this  idea  and  lets  it  govern  his  life  has  then 
a  rightness  of  disposition,  in  virtue  of  which  the 
minor  imperfections  of  humanity  may  be  consid- 
ered accidental  and  transitory.  In  the  daily  suf- 
fei'ing  of  self-discipline,  obedience,  and  patience, 
the  new  man  suffers  vicariously  for  the  old.  This 
avoids  the  idea  of  one  who  by  a  process  of  substi- 
tution suffers  for  all,  an  event  which  cannot  occur 
in  the  sphere  of  morality. 

In  the  mind  of  Kant  the  old  things  had  passed 
away.  What  he  did  for  the  conception  of   the 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     329 

atonement  was  done  for  the  old  doctrine  of  sin 
and  salvation  by  Schleierraaclier,  who,  in  addition 
to  moral  earnestness,  possessed  a  finer  spiritual 
pei'ception  by  which  he  was  the  more  able  to  adapt 
and  assimilate,  and  so  succeeded  even  better  in 
the  reconstruction  of  theology  than  the  over- 
intellectual  Kant  or  the  insensible,  historical 
Herder  who  preceded  him. 

Every  system  of  religion  which  did  not  event- 
ually lose  itself  in  the  sand  has  organized  itself 
into  the  life  of  the  past,  and  by  a  process  of  trans- 
formation has  secured  an  orderly  development  and 
permanent  growth.  The  history  of  all  religions  is 
merely  a  record  of  this  amalgamation  of  the  new 
with  the  old.  When  a  race  of  Poseidon  worship- 
pers settled  amongst  the  worshippers  of  Athena 
they  identified  an  Athenian  male  deity,  already 
existing,  with  their  own  god,  and  accorded  to  both 
a  joint  worship  in  a  common  temple.  The  early 
church  accepted  the  primitive  Semitic  idea  of  the 
common  meal  in  which  the  tribal  god  had  his 
share ;  but  they  left  it  in  a  condition  of  fluidity,  so 
that  the  god  might  at  all  future  times  represent 
the  embodiment  or  personification  of  the  experi- 
ence which  the  tribe  accumulated,  and  of  the  in- 
creasing wisdom  which  arises  out  of  an  enlarged 
experience.  This  wise  measure  left  them  free  to 


330  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

incorporate  into  tlieir  observance  the  secondary 
idea  of  a  sacrifice  to  win  back  the  favour  and 
avert  the  anger  of  an  absent  god  who  —  so  they 
were  informed  by  a  growing  consciousness  of  right 
and  wrong  —  had  every  reason  to  be  displeased. 
And  so  the  Christian  sacrament  became  a  magi- 
cal means  for  maintaining  unbroken  the  religious 
unity  of  the  race.  The  stream  of  heathenism  long 
ran  side  by  side  with  the  Hebrew  religion.  Finally 
they  merged,  and  heathenism  was  swallowed  up, 
but  to  the  end  it  gave  a  tinge  and  tendency  to 
the  predominant  current.  Hebraism  lost  itself  in 
Christianity,  and  the  great  work  of  St.  Paul  was 
the  blending  and  direction  of  the  new  tide. 

The  weakness  of  Protestantism  is  that  it  is 
without  a  theology.  The  foundation  of  the  old  is 
shaken,  and  most  sensible  persons  are  agreed  that 
it  is  time  to  stop  erecting  any  further  superstruc- 
ture upon  it.  The  utmost  ever  claimed  was  that 
this  foundation  was  probably  safe.  The  utmost 
now  claimed  is  that  it  is  probably  unsafe,  but 
may  do  well  enough.  We  cannot  do  without  reli- 
gion. Religion  cannot  do  without  a  church.  A 
church  cannot  do  without  a  theology.  The  theo- 
logy which  we  have  is  unreal,  and  the  church  is 
unreal  too.  All  men  have  come  to  see  that  an 
outworn  theology  will  not  do  for  a  living  church. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     331 

There  is  no  use  putting  new  wine  into  decayed 
bottles,  or  adding  new  cloth  to  an  old  garment. 
The  bottles  have  already  burst.  The  rent  is  grow- 
ing worse  daily.  Nor  will  the  old  phrases  suffice : 
accept  a  creed,  receive  the  sacraments.  Even  the 
terms,  "lost,"  "saved,"  "washed  in  the  blood  of 
the  Lamb,"  fail  to  appeal. 

Protestantism  has  forgotten  that  the  clumsy 
weapon  which  Paul  forged  for  the  destruction  of 
the  two  giants,  Judaism  and  Gnosticism,  is  inef- 
fectual against  the  nimble  enemy  of  to-day.  In 
lesser  matters  also  the  situation  is  changed.  He 
had  definite  situations  to  deal  with,  and  his  argu- 
ment is  chiefly  of  historical  importance.  There  is 
now  no  question  of  eating  meat  which  has  been 
offered  to  idols,  and  afterwards  finds  its  way  into 
the  markets.  If  such  food  were  procurable  upon 
favourable  terms,  we  should  enjoy  it,  without 
much  fear  of  the  demons  who  were  assumed  to 
have  entered  into  it.  The  matter  of  the  circum- 
cision does  not  trouble  us.  We  have  solved  to  our 
satisfaction  the  problem  of  women  speaking  in 
church,  and  they  have  decided  for  themselves  the 
clothing  which  they  shall  wear.  Our  views  of 
marriage  and  divorce  are  fixed.  The  payment  of 
our  ministers  is  iu  many  instances  established  by 
law,  and  in  all  by  custom.  There  is  some  order  in 


332  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

our  church  services.  We  do  not  anticipate  daily 
the  Parousia  in  the  red  morning  or  the  golden 
evening.  We  are  not  looking  continually  that 
the  door  of  heaven  may  open  and  the  last  trum- 
pet sound.  We  do  not  expect  that  those  of  us  who 
are  now  living  will  be  caught  up  into  glory.  We 
are  sure  that  we  will  descend  into  the  grave  as 
our  fathers  have  descended. 

These  circumstances  no  longer  exist,  but  others 
of  equal  importance  have  come  into  existence,  and 
upon  these  our  theologians  must  make  up  their 
minds.  They  must  decide  whether  they  will  accept 
the  statement  of  an  unknown  Semitic  writer  upon 
the  origin  of  created  beings,  and  the  burden  of  sin 
which  we  lie  under,  or  the  general  teaching  of  sci- 
ence, that  the  depravity  of  men  is  due  not  to  a  fall 
from  primitive  purity,  but  to  their  late  emergence 
from  the  ape.  They  must  interpret  for  us  the  mean- 
ing of  this,  that  the  further  back  we  go,  the  more 
impure  the  race  appears,  and  that  a  true  type  of 
the  primitive  man  is  not  that  pair  "of  noble  shape, 
God-like,  erect  and  tall,  with  native  honour  clad 
in  native  majesty,  the  lords  of  all,"  but  the  Tas- 
manian  natives  of  a  hundred  years  ago  with  their 
short  stature,  long  arms,  black,  hairy  skins,  and 
naked  bodies,  employing  for  household  needs  flint 
scrapers  and  knives,  and  for  defence  a  wooden 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     333 

elub  hardened  by  fire,  which  was  grasped  by  the 
great  toe  and  dragged  along  until  necessity  for 
its  employment  arose. 

The  material  for  a  new  theology  —  which  after 
all  will  not  be  new  —  is  ready  at  hand.  It  only 
requires  a  new  saint  to  embody  the  spirit  of  reli- 
gion and  a  new  theologian  to  provide  a  gnosis. 
Until  that  event  arrives,  probably  the  best  that 
can  be  done  is  for  each  one  of  us  to  endeavour  to 
be  as  religious  as  he  can,  with  a  faith  that  out  of 
this  communized  feeling  will  arise  in  due  season 
a  new  theology  and  a  new  church. 

I  am  quite  well  aware  that  there  is  a  thing 
which  is  called  by  the  specific  term  New  Theo- 
logy. It  aims  at  being  scientific,  observing  facts, 
and  making  deductions.  The  ground  of  enquiry 
has  been  transferred  from  the  mind  of  God  to  the 
minds  of  men.  Its  exponents  are  busy  investigating 
the  operation  within  the  individual  of  those  influ- 
ences which  come  from  without.  They  perceive 
that  religious  experience  is  a  fact,  that  emotions 
are  produced  by  it,  and  that  conduct  is  influenced 
by  them  for  good.  From  this  effect  they  predi- 
cate a  cause,  and  then  proceed  to  investigate 
the  nature  of  it.  Conversion  is  a  reality,  as  real 
as  any  other  human  experience.  Prayer  and  public 
devotion  have  their  results  in  patience,  pureness, 


334  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

long-suffering,  kindness,  unfeigned  love.  From 
these  effects  certain  deductions  are  made  as  to 
the  source  from  which  they  come,  and  theories 
are  created  about  the  manner  in  which  these 
influences  are  propagated.  Instead  of  Spinoza's 
cognitio  Dei  intuitiva,  it  offers  us  proof  of  the 
sure  existence  of  God. 

Even  mathematics  has  been  pressed  into  the 
service  of  this  new  and  scientific  theology.  In  the 
"  Hibbert  Journal "  for  January,  1909,  Professor 
C.  T.  Keyser  holds  "  that  recent  developments  of 
mathematical  science,  as  furnishing  direct  insight 
into  the  positive  nature  of  the  Infinite,  are  of  the 
greatest  importance  to  theology."  But  on  account 
of  natural  incapacity  or  lack  of  opportunity,  not 
all  persons  are  versed  in  the  higher  mathematics, 
and  it  seems  hard  that  they  should  on  that  account 
be  debarred  from  a  saving  knowledge  of  the  liv- 
ing and  true  God. 

The  earliest  of  these  new  theologians  was  Schlei- 
ermacher.  He  demonstrated  that  Christian  faith 
does  not  consist  in  doctrinal  propositions  which 
arise  from  intellectual  reflection  upon  the  subject, 
but  is  "  a  condition  of  devout  feeling,  a  fact  of  in- 
ward experience,  an  object  which  may  be  observed 
and  described."  True  its  results  may  be  observed 
and  described  ;  but  no  one  can  describe  an  experi- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     335 

ence  which  he  himself  has  not  experienced ;  and 
it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that,  even  if  a  man 
should  undergo  such  an  experience,  he  would  have 
either  the  desire  or  the  capacity  to  give  an  account 
which  would  be  satisfactory  to  himself  or  intelli- 
gible to  others.  The  poet-books  are  filled  chiefly 
with  observations  and  descriptions  of  the  mutual 
passion  of  the  male  and  the  female ;  but  in  spite 
of  all  this  information,  there  is  an  element  of  sur- 
prise when  that  passion  is  first  felt  by  the  indi- 
vidual. I  suppose  that  is  as  true  of  the  poets  and 
theologians  as  of  the  most  diligent  reader  of  their 
works. 

In  this  new  theology  also  there  is  fallacy. 
Search  for  abstract  proof  begins  in  doubt  and  ends 
in  despair.  "  Fear  God  "  has  made  many  men 
happy:  "proofs"  of  the  existence  of  God  have 
made  many  men  atheists.  At  one  time  I  possessed 
a  sure  conviction  that  two  and  two  make  four  ; 
but  in  an  evil  moment  I  allowed  myself  to  become 
interested  in  a  controversy  upon  the  subject  be- 
tween Professor  Taylor  and  a  colleague.  Now  I 
am  in  despair  that  I  shall  ever  attain  to  a  finality 
of  opinion  upon  the  subject.  In  less  rational  mood 
I  have  a  vision  that  the  old  formula  is  sufficiently 
accurate  for  the  practical  purpose  of  adjusting 
my  relation  between  the  man  whom  I  owe  and 


336  ESSAYS   IN   FALLACY 

the  man  who  owes  me  ;  that,  in  short,  it  is  adequate 
for  purposes  of  conduct.  This  new  investigation 
into  the  operation  of  influences  which  are  assumed 
to  come  from  without  is  in  reality  a  spiritualized 
psychology  conducted  in  a  spiritual  laboratory, 
to  employ  the  striking  phrase  of  Mr.  Justice 
Archibald. 

In  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  inform  myself,  these 
theologians  have  not  yet  advanced  beyond  the  stage 
of  human  psychology  and  psychical  research. 
Great  hopes  were  entertained  that  by  "  laboratory 
methods  "  the  nature  of  the  soul  could  be  deter- 
mined, and  from  that  the  nature  of  God  inferred. 
They  have  attained  to  quite  definite  results.  By 
an  ingenious  arrangement  of  a  bed  on  a  light 
framework  supported  by  very  delicately  balanced 
beam-scales  upon  which  a  moribund  patient  was 
placed  for  three  hours  and  forty  minutes,  and 
allowed  to  die,  it  was  determined  that  the  weight 
of  the  soul  was  three-fourths  of  an  ounce.  The 
report  is  quite  specific :  "  Coincident  with  death 
the  beam  end  dropped  with  an  audible  stroke, 
hitting  against  the  lower,  limiting  bar,  and  re- 
maining there  with  no  rebound  " ;  and  yet  it  is 
questionable  if  our  knowledge  of  the  soul  is  much 
enhanced  by  these  elaborate  mechanical  contriv- 
ances. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     337 

These  are  pretensions,  like  the  pretensions  of 
Kant,  that  with  mortal  foot  he  could  pass  beyond 
the  gate  of  human  experience,  and  they  are  as  fal- 
lacious as  the  political  pretensions  of  Louis  XIV. 
The  fate  of  the  king  has  ever  since  been  a  warn- 
ing to  politicians.  The  fate  of  the  philosopher 
should  be  a  warning  to  new  theologians.  There 
is  nothing  in  this  new  theology  to  induce  one 
to  abandon  the  original  contention  that  God  is 
not  apprehended  by  any  device  of  the  intellect. 
To  seek  to  do  so  is  a  surrender  to  the  material- 
istic idea  that  the  scientific  spirit  broods  over  the 
universe,  and  that  by  searching  we  can  find  out 
God.  This  vain  attempt  to  convert  religion  into 
terms  of  logic  is  not  being  made,  I  admit,  by 
irreligious  men,  but  by  many  a  fine  spirit  follow- 
ing the  religious  sense  under  the  delusion  that  it 
is  following  the  understanding. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  new  theologians  have 
met  with  results  sufficient  to  encourage  them  in 
this  research  beyond  the  limits  of  human  experi- 
ence. Within  those  limits  they  have  observed  and 
classified ;  but  I  do  not  think  they  have  made  any 
clearer  the  mystery  of  personal  religious  experi- 
ence, by  which  the  individual  escapes  from  the 
domination  of  transitory  things.  "  Not  surely  of 
deliberate  effort  of  thought,"  says  George  Gissing 


338  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

again,  "  does  a  man  grow  wise.  The  trutlis  of  life 
are  discovered  by  us  at  moments  unforeseen.  Some 
gracious  influence  descends  upon  the  soul,  touch- 
ing it  to  an  emotion  which,  we  know  not  how, 
the  mind  transmutes  into  thought.  This  can  only 
happen  in  a  calm  of  the  senses,  a  surrender  of 
the  whole  being  to  passionless  contemplation." 

I  understood  when  I  went  into  the  sanctuary 
of  God,  is  the  way  in  which  the  Hebrew  psalm- 
ist expresses  the  method  of  search  by  which  the 
mystery  may  be  solved,  and  even  yet  in  the  twi- 
light of  a  church  the  word  "  God  "  may  acquire 
an  intelligible  meaninsr  which  is  missed  in  the 
clear  light  and  frigid  atmosphere  of  reason.  It 
boots  little  for  a  man  to  know  that  the  psalm  in 
which  this  expression  occurs  is  a  psalm  of  Asaph, 
and  that  Asaph  signifies  a  collection  of  religious 
poems  which  were  put  together  in  Babylonia  in 
the  early  Greek  period,  if  his  knowledge  does  not 
result  in  some  amplification  of  the  statement  with 
which  the  poem  ends :  "  It  is  good  for  me  to  draw 
near  to  God." 

No  system  of  religion  but  ours  has  ever  pro- 
ceeded upon  the  assumption  that  the  mystery  of 
God  could  be  investigated,  or  that  it  was  desira- 
ble that  it  should  be  investigated;  and  we  may 
content  ourselves  with  the  assurance  that  the  new 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     339 

investigators  will  not  pluck  out  the  heart  of  it. 
"  Hallowed  be  thy  name  "  expressed  the  attitude 
of  Jesus.  "  Thou  shalt  not  take  his  name  in  vain  " 
was  the  injunction  to  the  Hebrews.  The  Romans 
never  mentioned  their  household  gods :  and  the 
"holy  things"  of  the  Greeks  were  regarded  as 
too  holy  to  be  looked  upon.  With  fine  reticence 
the  writers  of  the  first  two  Gospels  omit  to  men- 
tion the  last  words  of  their  master  as  being  too 
sacred  for  utterance.  This  attitude  of  reverence 
is  not  an  artificial  one.  The  peasantry  forbear 
to  name  the  "little  people"  by  whom  they  are 
surrounded.  This  restraint  of  speech  enters  even 
into  the  human  relationship  :  it  is  a  mark  of  vul- 
garity of  mind  when  a  man  mentions  the  name 
of  his  beloved  dead. 

It  may  well  be  that  the  present  condition  of 
bewilderment  is  due  to  the  discovery  not  yet 
made  fully  conscious  to  us  that  the  Hebrew  idea 
in  Christianity  is  alien  to  our  race.  All  Semitic 
faiths  are  based  upon  revelation.  The  Jews  never 
believed  anything  which  they  could  understand. 
They  did  not  desire  a  theory.  That  was  left  for 
the  Gentile  world,  of  which  we  are.  The  Greeks 
demanded  a  philosophy  of  God  as  the  Scotch  re- 
quire a  logic.  Doubtless  it  would  be  better  if  all 
peoples  would  adopt  the  Scotch  practice  instead 


340  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

of  going  to  their  own  place  in  their  own  way ;  but 
to  suppose  that  they  will  be  amenable  to  reason 
would  indicate  an  excess  of  proselytizing  zeal. 
The  Scotch  mind  demands  a  kind  of  theological 
ephemeris,  as  a  mariner  requires  a  table  of  calcu- 
lated positions  and  motions  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
from  day  to  day,  or  at  regular  intervals.  Indeed 
the  "Gifford  Lectures"  are  a  crude  attempt  to 
determine  the  status  of  God  for  a  given  period. 
Of  course  scientific  accuracy  is  impossible,  as 
the  personal  equation  of  the  lecturers  is  so  vari- 
able, and  the  data  themselves  are  so  veiled  in 
obscurity. 

God  is  in  heaven,  therefore  all  is  right  with 
the  world.  That  is  the  conception  which  we  have 
borrowed  from  the  Jews,  to  replace  the  older  idea 
in  which  our  race  was  nourished,  that  God  is  on 
earth.  Between  these  two  is  fixed  the  gulf  which 
separates  West  and  East.  The  religion  of  the  East 
is  a  manifestation  of  that  inward  light  of  which 
Mr.  Hall  Fielding  writes  so  charmingly,  and  not 
of  a  great  light  which  came  down  from  heaven. 
It  says  this  thing  is  true  as  an  artist  should  say, 
"  I  feel  this  curve  is  right  or  this  line  should  fall 
thus,"  and  not  because  some  one  —  Moses,  Jesus, 
Paul,  Luther,  Calvin,  Mrs.  Eddy  —  said  so,  or 
because  it  is  written  in  a  book. 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     341 

This  scientific  theology  at  its  best  is  in  reality 
a  revival  of  the  method  of  Buddha,  who  declared 
that  he  had  found  a  way  which,  if  a  man  would 
follow,  leads  to  serenity  and  peace.  Come  and  see, 
he  said,  what  God  hath  done  for  my  soul ;  but  our 
new  theologians  are  prone  to  weary  us  by  telling 
at  second-hand  what  happened  in  some  other  per- 
son's soul,  and  how  it  came  about.  It  is  question- 
able if  they  appreciate  what  an  entire  reversal  of 
Christianity  this  experimental  method  is,  reason- 
ing from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  instead  of 
from  the  unknowable  to  the  known,  taking  a  stand 
within  the  experience,  instead  of  arguing  down- 
ward from  a  postulate. 

And  yet,  whatever  the  system,  it  becomes  cor- 
rupt in  time.  The  caste  and  ceremonial  of  modern 
Hinduism  is  a  degeneration  from  that  pure  reli- 
gion which  arose  out  of  a  life  that  was  pure  and 
free,  a  public  life  that  was  brave  and  patriotic,  a 
private  life  that  was  lovely  and  happy,  an  intel- 
lectual life  that  was  learned.  In  precisely  the  same 
way  the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  transformed  into  an 
ecclesiastical  Christianity,  furnished  forth  by  Paul 
and  his  followers  with  a  full  equipment  of  belief 
in  original  sin,  vicarious  sacrifices,  and  atonement. 
His  fine  freedom  gave  place  to  a  government  by 
bishops,  deacons,  and  their  subordinates ;  sacra- 


342  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

ments  took  the  place  of  the  reality  which  they 
were  designed  to  show  forth ;  simplicity  and  aus- 
terity were  vitiated  by  a  spirit  of  compromise  in 
which  righteousness  was  made  subordinate  to 
human  convenience.  It  required  nearly  five  hun- 
dred years  for  the  Brahmins  to  make  a  monopoly 
of  religion.  The  followers  of  Jesus  did  their  work 
in  less  than  two  hundred.  Indeed  the  original  en- 
thusiasm, the  faith  in  God,  the  faith  in  love,  the 
faith  in  the  impossible  even,  in  virtue  of  which  the 
spirit  casts  away  its  cares,  and  goes  with  trust  and 
confidence  and  serenity,  had  evaporated  as  early 
as  the  time  of  writing  the  Epistles  to  Timothy 
and  Titus.  So  early  as  that,  faith  in  Jesus  had 
become  a  creed;  devotion  to  him  a  Christology; 
the  coming  of  the  kingdom  an  egotistic  immor- 
tality ;  prophecy,  a  textual  exegesis  ;  ministers, 
clerics;  prayers,  litanies;  the  community,  a 
ceremonial  ecclesiasticism  ;  and  the  Gospel  an 
unyielding  system  of  legality. 

VII 

Those  who  are  specifically  engaged  in  the  ser- 
vice of  religion  would  do  well  to  realize  that  there 
is  a  diversity  of  gifts.  When  Father  Simon  was 
asked  by  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  what  he  was 
doing  to  prepare  for  the  higher  orders  of  the 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     343 

priesthood  he  replied,  "Monseigneur,  I  am  criti- 
cizing the  Bible."  If  the  same  question  were  put 
to  a  Protestant  minister  to-day,  he  might  reply- 
truthfully,  and  in  the  belief  that  he  was  follow- 
ing the  proper  course,  "  I  am  engaged  in  the 
higher  criticism." 

This  criticism  is  an  affair  for  scholars.  A  man 
may  be  religious  without  being  a  scholai-,  but 
he  cannot  be  a  scholar  without  being  religious. 
When  a  man  who  is  merely  religious  and  without 
other  equipment  meddles  with  scholarship,  he  is 
sure  to  say  something  foolish.  The  best  he  can  do 
is  to  stand  aside  and  leave  scholars  to  their  task, 
and  when  that  is  finished,  seize  upon  the  results 
for  the  enrichment  of  his  mind.  He  may  pray  for 
them,  but  he  should  not  interfere.  The  business  of 
scholars  is  to  break  down  all  systems  of  theology, 
to  resolve  them  into  their  elements,  to  disclose  the 
facts  of  experience  which  they  contain,  to  put  aside 
the  temporary  and  the  accidental,  casting  down 
the  things  that  can  be  shaken,  so  that  the  things 
which  cannot  be  shaken  may  endure  in  their  power 
and  beauty. 

I  think  that  most  persons  are  in  agreement  that 
no  age  or  race  can  contrive  a  theology  which  will 
be  adequate  for  the  next  age  or  another  race.  We 
may  now  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  no  man  can  con- 


M4  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

trive  a  theology  which  will  be  entirely  adequate 
for  any  other  man.  Each  one  must  make  a  theo- 
logy for  himself,  which  will  be  a  thing  living  and 
changing  day  by  day,  as  his  experience  enlarges 
and  his  knowledge  grows.  It  is  possible  that  this 
will  appear  as  a  daring  experiment  to  the  theologi- 
cal mind,  which  takes  it  for  granted  that  the  non- 
theological  mind  is  incapable  of  comprehending 
any  head  of  doctrine  ;  and  that  since  all  attempts 
at  understanding  are  hopeless,  nothing  remains 
but  a  passive  acceptance. 

It  is  the  business  of  theologians  to  create  out  of 
these  individual  experiences,  their  own  included, 
a  systematized  theory  of  God  as  a  working  formula 
for  the  church,  which  preserves  and  transmits 
to  posterity  the  record  of  God's  dealing  with  men. 
The  first  lesson  they  must  learn  is  not  to  take 
their  business  too  seriously.  The  next  lesson  they 
must  learn  is  to  take  it  seriously  enough.  They 
must  strive  with  all  their  might  to  find  out  God, 
and  at  the  same  time  be  fully  convinced  that  they 
cannot  formularize  the  idea  within  the  limits  of 
any  dogma. 

It  is  a  fundamental  fallacy  that  a  theology  can 
be  created  unless  the  spirit  of  religion  inspires, 
or  that  either  can  endure  without  an  ecclesiastical 
organization.  And  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  the  let- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     345 

ter  kills  the  spirit ;  the  priest  betrays  the  church 
aucl  destroys  the  prophet ;  and  the  theologian 
slays  the  saint.  As  if  the  matter  were  not  suf- 
ficiently complicated,  there  is  this  further  to  be 
said  :  that  religion  is  served  by  self-interest,  which 
itself  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  church,  and 
eventually  destroys  it. 

A  church  is  in  one  sense  a  habitation  for  men, 
and  in  another  sense  which  completes  the  idea, 
a  repository  for  religion,  a  means  of  carrying 
out  God's  work  in  the  world  by  the  perfecting  of 
the  individual.  It  is  an  edifice  constructed  by 
human  hands.  Like  all  works  of  finite  intelli- 
gence, it  is  subject  to  time  and  chance.  Every 
system  of  human  contrivance  has  in  itself  the 
seeds  of  decay.  Death  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
life,  and  it  is  merely  a  question  of  time  which 
shall  prevail.  Therefore  we  need  not  wonder  at 
the  condition  of  degradation  into  which  at  times 
the  church  has  fallen. 

Let  us  admit  to  the  uttermost  these  mutations 
of  decay.  The  prophet  Jeremiah  lived  in  one  of 
those  periods,  and  the  twelfth  century  yields  an- 
other illustration,  when  Innocent  III  in  the  Bull 
dated  June  8th,  1198,  declared  that  only  fire  and 
sword  could  destroy  and  save.  Benefices  were  put 
up  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder ;  prelates  were 


346  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

bought  by  fees ;  clerics  resorted  to  any  means  to 
make  provision  for  their  illegitimates ;  monas- 
teries added  to  their  other  attractions  women  like 
those  who  were  evil  in  Judaea;  priests  paid  to 
their  bishops  a  fee  known  as  a  collageum,  in  re- 
turn for  the  poor  privilege  of  keeping  a  harlot, 
which  proves  the  simplicity  of  the  priests  as  well 
as  the  avarice  of  the  bishops.  All  these  things 
are  contained,  not  in  the  book  of  the  martyrs, 
but  in  the  successive  bulls  against  assassination, 
incest,  adultery.  Religion  was  lost  in  magical 
formulae,  in  liturgical  ceremonies.  Yet  it  emerged 
again,  and  men  were  drawn  to  it  by  the  marvel- 
lous atti'activeness  of  the  simplicity  and  austerity 
of  the  Povarello,  the  poor  little  man  of  Assisi. 

To  be  quite  comprehensive,  one  might  refer  to 
the  church  in  England  in  the  fifteenth  century, 
about  which  the  Corporation  of  London  has  just 
published  some  details.  In  "  Letter  Book  I," 
covering  the  period  1400-1422,  there  is  a  record 
of  nearly  seventy  cases  of  adultery  which  were 
brought  before  the  Mayor  and  Aldermen,  and 
nearly  fifty  of  them  concerned  the  clergy.  To  be 
still  more  comprehensive,  I  might  refer  to  the 
same  church  under  its  altered  constitution,  and 
to  the  Presbyterian  church  as  well,  when  Wesley 
and  his  followers  revolted  against  the  lifeless  for- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     347 

mallty  of  the  one  and  the  deadly  fatalism  of  the 
other.  Yet  out  of  these  churches  arose  by  the 
means  of  men  trained  in  them  the  "  rediscovery 
of  the  love  of  God,"  as  set  forth  in  the  five  uni- 
versal of  Methodism,  so  well  catalogued  by  Dr. 
Workman :  that  all  men  need  salvation  ;  that  all 
men  may  be  saved  ;  that  all  may  know  themselves 
to  be  saved ;  that  all  should  declare  their  salva- 
tion ;  and  that  all  may  attain  to  holiness. 

As  the  spirit  decays,  its  place  is  taken  by  the 
institution.  That  is  a  law.  It  is  a  law  also  in 
physiology  that  in  the  process  of  degeneration 
the  finer  tissue  is  replaced  by  a  hard,  resistant 
substance,  lest  a  worse  thing  befall.  In  a  more 
purely  pathological  condition  the  decaying  tissue 
is  replaced  by  a  new  growth  which  in  turn  breaks 
down  and  destroys  the  organism.  This  cancer  is 
the  result  of  deficient  vitality  and  not  the  cause. 
The  history  of  that  organization  which  was  ori- 
ginally designed  for  the  Christianizing  of  young 
men  yields  an  excellent  illustration  of  this  tend- 
ency to  replace  the  spirit  by  the  institution.  In 
the  outset  its  whole  energy  was  expended  upon  the 
spiritual  salvation  of  those  to  whom  it  appealed. 
To-day  its  claim  for  support  is  based  upon  the 
humanitarian  plea,  that  it  makes  young  men  effi- 
cient not  by  revealing  to  them  the  mystery  of 


348  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

God  and  of  goodness  in  the  world,  but  by  mak- 
ing them  more  accomplished  in  the  use  of  their 
intelligence  and  of  their  muscles,  especially  of 
those  which  have  to  do  with  the  operation  of  a 
writing-machine. 

The  whole  controversy  turns  upon  the  question, 
What  is  the  chief  end  of  man  ?  To  this  also  there 
are  two  answers.  Whether  shall  it  be  to  seek 
first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness, 
with  a  surety  that  all  other  things  needful  will 
be  added,  or  to  seek  first  for  the  things  which  are 
imagined  to  be  of  immediate  necessity  ?  In  this  lies 
the  distinction  between  the  old  evangelicism  which 
made  men  dissatisfied  with  their  character,  and  the 
new  institutionalism  which  makes  them  dissatis- 
fied with  their  surroundings.  The  one  was  the 
method  of  Jesus :  the  other  is  the  method  of  "  prac- 
tical Christianity."  Both  cannot  be  right.  Upon 
this  question  the  church  must  make  up  its  mind. 

The  belief  that  God  created  the  church  by  a 
more  specific  act  of  Providence  than  that  by  which 
He  created  the  world  is  merely  an  assumption  of 
ecclesiastics,  who  are  actuated  by  the  laudable  de- 
sire to  magnify  their  own  office.  Even  Jesus,  when 
he  was  on  earth,  did  not  find  himself  especially 
brother  to  the  ecclesiastic.  He  dissented  from  the 
church  which  he  found  in  existence,  and  took  no 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     349 

measures  to  establish  a  new  one.  He  initiated  no 
ordinances.  He  did  not  baptize.  He  instituted  no 
sacrament.  The  comparison  of  the  broken  bread 
with  his  broken  body  and  the  red  wine  with  his 
shed  blood  was  a  parable,  not  a  sacrament,  as  the 
pouring  out  of  the  ointment  by  the  woman  was  an 
emblem  of  his  burial.  He  left  behind  him  merely 
an  enthusiasm  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  had  been 
so  closely  drawn  to  his  person,  and  they,  with  a 
sure  instinct  that  all  enthusiasm  is  evanescent, 
proceeded  to  secure  it  within  the  limits  of  a  church. 
With  an  equally  sure  instinct  they  were  resolved 
that  no  religious  fact  should  be  lost. 

In  periods  of  great  theological  dissolution  like 
the  present  there  is  always  a  slackening  of  eccle- 
siastical organization  ;  but  it  is  not  the  distinctive 
mark  of  a  religious  man  that  he  stays  away  from 
church.  In  the  city  of  New  York,  in  the  year 
1905,  according  to  Dr.  Laidlaw's  estimate  in  the 
"  Federation  of  Churches,"  there  were  1,071,981 
Protestants  who  attended  no  place  of  public  wor- 
ship ;  and  we  are  informed  that  80  per  cent  of  the 
Jews  are  alienated  from  their  own  synagogues. 
These  are  not  religious  above  all  men.  It  is  a  poor 
retort  of  Protestants  that  the  area  of  "Romish 
darkness  "  is  also  diminishing ;  and  they  are  wel- 
come to  such  ground  for  comfort  and  boasting  as 


350  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

they  can  find  in  the  startling  statistics  which  Mr. 
McCabe  supplies  of  the  decay  of  the  Catholic 
church.  All  churches  are  one  church,  and  if  the 
Catholic  church  in  France  has  diminished  in  fifty 
years  from  thirty  millions  in  a  population  of  thirty- 
six  millions  to  six  millions  in  a  population  of  thirty- 
nine  millions,  the  gain  is  not  to  Protestantism  or 
to  Christianity  either.  Men  do  not  willingly  or  of 
set  purpose  refrain  from  the  exercise  of  the  reli- 
gious consciousness,  nor  do  they  deliberately  ab- 
stain from  the  assembling  of  themselves  together. 
They  stay  away  from  church  either  because  their 
intelligence  is  offended,  or  because  they  receive 
no  pleasurable  stimulation  of  their  religious  sense, 
—  for  the  same  reason  that  sensible  men  do  not 
go  to  a  theatre  which  does  not  stimulate  a  feeling 
for  music  or  dramatic  action. 

There  are  two  ways  by  which  men  have  striven 
to  find  God :  by  magic,  divination,  sorcery,  super- 
stition, rites,  and  ceremonies ;  and  experimentally 
in  the  heart.  The  former  is  the  way  of  the  eccle- 
siastics ;  the  latter  is  the  way  of  Jesus.  And  yet 
one  must  not  say  that  these  two  methods  are 
mutually  contradictory  or  even  entirely  distinct. 
The  celebration  of  certain  rites  arouses  a  genu- 
ine religious  emotion  in  the  minds  of  persons  to 
whom  they  are  utterly  meaningless ;  and  a  religious 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     351 

atmosphere  is  created  which  in  turn  influences 
persons  to  whom  those  rites  are  superstitions.  In 
many  places  it  is  customary  for  a  man  to  raise  his 
hat  as  he  passes  a  church  wherein  is  exposed  — 
as  he  believes,  and  as  some  hundred  millions  of 
his  fellow-men  believe  —  the  body  of  the  Lord. 
An  unbelieving  companion,  if  he  is  not  a  churl, 
will  join  in  this  little  act  of  respect,  as  he  would 
to  a  woman  who  was  known  to  his  companion  but 
not  to  him  ;  and  if  he  is  not  entirely  insensible 
to  the  finer  emotions,  he  will  experience  a  faint 
religious  feeling. 

Again,  a  person  may  be  convinced  that  God 
can  exist  very  well  without  the  offering  of  human 
praise  or  prayer  ;  and  yet  if  he  practise  the  repe- 
tition of  the  Lord's  prayer  in  a  mechanical  way  as 
a  device  against  sleeplessness,  he  is  very  liable  to 
experience  a  sensation  of  comfort.  It  is  a  law  that 
all  stimuli  must  be  increased  in  Intensity  accord- 
ing to  the  frequency  with  which  they  are  used, 
and  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  these  two  little  acts 
of  adoration  and  prayer  might  lead  to  frequent 
attendance  upon  public  worship,  where  the  sight 
of  others  under  the  influence  of  religious  emotion 
would  produce  its  effect  by  contagion.  Upon  this 
matter  no  one  is  entitled  to  offer  an  opinion  until 
he  has  made  experiment  of  it. 


352  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

What  man,  unless  he  is  hardened  by  habitual 
and  violent  jjrotesting,  can  remain  unmoved  in 
the  presence  of  a  Catholic  woman  praying  for  her 
dead?  If  it  is  his  own  dead  for  whom  she  prays, 
he  is  quite  capable  of  discarding  his  Protestantism 
to  adopt  the  tenets  of  a  church  which  encourages 
so  pious  and  comforting  a  practice.  If  it  were  not 
for  death,  there  would  be  no  religion  ;  and  religion 
will  endure  so  long  as  death  prevails.  Each  man 
for  himself  must  put  himself  in  a  proper  relation 
to  the  surroundings  in  which  he  finds  himself.  As 
the  young  preacher  says,  he  must  be  "  rightened  " ; 
and  as  soon  as  he  gets  himself  thus  rightened,  he 
experiences  a  feeling  which  is  called  religious.  He 
behaves  differently  because  he  is  rightened  and 
not  because  he  has  the  feeling.  One  can  simulate 
a  feeling  unconsciously  and  honestly.  Electrical 
stimulation  makes  a  blind  man  think  he  sees.  He 
has  merely  the  feeling  of  seeing,  but  in  reality 
he  sees  not.  Even  if  a  man  had  the  real  reli- 
gious feeling  without  being  rightened,  it  would  not 
much  amend  his  conduct ;  but  the  artificial  crea- 
tion of  an  emotion  will  bring  about  the  condition 
of  mind  from  which  that  emotion  normally  arises. 
That  is  the  true  explanation  of  the  value  of  pri- 
vate devotion  and  public  worship. 

Protestantism  as  a  means  of  ministerins:  to  this 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     353 

human  need  for  religious  observance  has  failed. 
It  may  do  what  it  likes  to  arouse  the  deeper  emo- 
tions by  decking  its  pulpits  with  flowers  and  with 
monstrous  fruits  on  its  days  of  thanksgiving.  It 
may  enrich  its  music  and  colour  its  windows.  It 
may  contrive  a  liturgy,  as  a  beaver  in  a  zoologi- 
cal garden  attempts  by  reason  of  a  deep  instinct 
to  construct  a  dam  with  the  poor  material  he  can 
find.  It  is  merely  competing  in  its  decoration  with 
the  agricultural  fair,  in  its  music  with  the  concert, 
in  its  liturgy  with  the  Catholic  church.  One  who 
has  heard  the  silver  trumpets  at  the  papal  Mass, 
where  even  the  sub-deacon  is  a  cardinal,  and  the 
Gospel  is  read  in  Greek,  and  has  seen  the  Pontiff 
breaking  at  the  altar  and  communicating  at  his 
seat  — because  Christ  broke  the  bread  at  Emmaus, 
but  eat  before  the  disciples  at  Jerusalem,  and 
suffered  his  Passion  in  the  public  gaze  —  will 
understand  the  futility  of  these  little  Protestant 
devices  for  appealing  to  the  heart  of  the  race. 

The  trouble  with  the  Protestant  minister  is  this : 
he  does  not  know  what  he  is.  It  is  quite  open  for 
any  man  to  choose  whether  he  will  attend  a  ser- 
vice at  which  a  priest  or  a  minister  officiates, 
whether  he  will  be  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant. 
The  Catholic  church  is  served  by  priests.  The 
essence  of  its  system  is  sacrifice,  the  sacrifice  of 


354  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

the  Mass,  by  which  the  body  and  blood  of  Jesus 
are  sacrificed  anew  every  time  the  service  is  per- 
formed. But  Protestantism  fails  to  apprehend,  or 
rather  denies,  that  anything  really  does  happen. 
In  the  religious  rites  of  the  Hebrews,  of  the 
Greeks,  of  the  Komans,  actual  sacrifice  of  beasts 
or  of  human  beings  was  made  by  the  priest.  In 
the  Catholic  church  there  is  at  least  a  theoretical 
sacrifice ;  but  Protestantism  is  the  negation  of  the 
sacrificial  idea ;  and  therefore  in  it  there  is  no 
place  for  the  priest. 

The  weakness  of  Protestantism  to-day  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  its  ministrants  are  not  entirely 
convinced  that  they  no  longer  retain  any  priestly 
quality:  and  for  lack  of  that  conviction,  they  have 
not  wholly  developed  the  quality  of  minister.  Be- 
ing uncertain  of  their  vocation,they  have  jumped 
to  the  conclusion  that  their  business  is  the  propa- 
gation of  ideas.  That  is  why  Protestant  churches 
are  usually  empty.  Even  if  they  were  in  pos- 
session of  ideas,  it  would  not  follow  that  men 
would  be  drawn  unto  them.  That  is  why  Catholic 
churches  are  always  full:  because  they  have  no 
ideas  to  propagate,  but  afford  a  place  of  calm  for 
the  senses,  a  retreat  from  the  world  of  thought, 
an  incentive  to  worship  for  which  the  soul  yearns, 
a  stimulus  for  that  religious  emotion  which  suf- 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     355 

fuses  the  whole  being,  and  translates  the  world 
of  reality  into  the  sphere  of  imagination. 

When  all  theological  systems  have  been  reduced 
to  a  condition  of  fluidity,  and  flux,  and  continuous 
flowing,  a  universal  church  will  formulate  itself, 
and  all  men  will  be  drawn  unto  it  for  the  sheer 
enjoyment  of  losing  themselves  in  the  Infinite. 
By  the  contemplation  of  heavenly  things  the 
transitory  and  perishable  will  seem  of  less  impor- 
tance than  they  now  appear  to  be ;  and  men  will 
turn  from  them  with  hatred  and  full  purpose  to 
endeavour  after  a  new  obedience. 

Religion  has  to  do  with  the  emotions,  and  an 
emotion  arises  from  a  condition  of  mind.  It  is  the 
business  of  a  man  who  is  concerned  specifically 
with  religion  to  create  a  condition  of  mind  from 
which  religious  emotions  will  arise.  The  tradi- 
tional method  in  Protestant  churches  is  to  put 
the  people  in  mind  of  heaven  or  of  hell.  But  that 
is  too  coarse  for  these  times ;  and  any  faint  sparb 
which  has  been  enkindled  is  apt  to  be  quenched 
by  the  announcement  that  the  Dorcas  Society 
will  meet  on  Thursday,  and  that  the  collection, 
which  it  is  hoped  will  be  a  liberal  one,  will  be 
devoted  to  the  purposes  of  Foreign  Missions,  even 
at  a  moment  when  one  is  yearning  for  a  mission 
to  himself. 


356  ESSAYS  IN   FALLACY 

The  ability  to  induce  a  condition  of  mind  out 
of  which  religious  emotions  will  arise  is  not  given 
to  every  man.  That  is  reserved  in  the  highest  de- 
gree to  men  of  religious  genius  such  as  Augustine 
and  Wesley  were;  yet  the  ministry  can  justify 
itself  only  by  conveying  to  men  a  call  which  will 
be  effectual  for  their  awakening,  so  that  they  may 
be  enlightened  as  to  their  actual  condition,  and 
persuaded  to  improve  it.  There  is  no  universal 
formula  which  will  be  equally  applicable  to  all 
men.  To  one  Jesus  said.  Sell  all  that  thou  hast ; 
to  another,  Follow  me ;  to  another,  Thou  art  not 
far  from  the  kingdom.  There  are  many  ways  in 
which  a  man  may  be  awakened  —  by  the  crack 
of  a  pistol,  by  the  crying  of  a  trumpet,  or  the  beat 
of  a  drum ;  but,  like  the  soldier  on  the  field,  "  he 
may  swear  an  oath  or  two,  and  so  sleep  again." 
Also,  men  may  be  aroused  by  gentler  methods, 
as  our  first  parents  were,  by  "  sweet  sounds  upon 
a  bank  of  flowers."  There  is  a  rude  but  effectual 
device  which  boys  employ,  the  application  of 
sulphur  fumes  to  the  nostrils.  The  last  great  ex- 
ponent of  that  dangerous  method  was  Jonathan 
Edwards,  who  succeeded  in  bringing  men  to  an 
apprehension  of  "the  mercy  of  God  in  Christ" 
by  putting  them  in  mind  of  hell.  Since  his  time 
we  have  grown  more  humane,  or,  it  may  be,  more 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     357 

sentimental ;  and  the  Christian  hell  has  become 
a  comparatively  tolerable  place  and  heaven  less 
alluring. 

The  cry  of  the  young  preacher  is,  Back  to  Jesus. 
Backward  is  always  the  cry  of  the  traditionalists. 
The  preacher  must  first  tell  us,  as  Paul  did,  what 
God  has  done  for  his  soul,  and  so  persuade  us 
in  virtue  of  that  to  embrace,  as  the  Catechism 
says,  Jesus  Christ  freely  offered  to  us  in  the  Gos- 
pel and  shining  with  a  new  light.  But  first,  God 
must  have  done  something  for  his  soul,  which  is 
pretty  clearly  revealed  in  his  life.  That  is  his  sole 
warrant  of  authority. 

Those  whose  business  it  is  to  make  this  con- 
dition of  mind  to  prevail  have  direct  instruction 
under  the  hand  of  Paul.  That  is  his  supreme  value 
to  the  world,  his  perception  of  the  state  of  mind 
which  results  in  right  conduct.  What,  then,  is 
his  view  of  the  conduct  proper  for  the  ministry? 
If  you  would  commend  or  approve  yourselves 
as  ministers  of  God,  he  writes,  you  must  refrain 
from  giving  offence,  you  must  be  patient  even  in 
affliction,  in  necessities,  in  distress,  in  labours,  in 
watchings,  in  fastings.  He  also  prescribes  the  con- 
duct to  be  observed  in  circumstances  which,  I 
fancy,  are  less  common  now  than  in  his  time  — 
imprisonments  and  tumults.  He  makes  no  men- 


358  ESSAYS  IN  FALLACY 

tion  of  skill  in  theological  argument,  but  he  makes 
a  great  deal  of  pureness,  long-suffering,  kindness, 
unfeigned  love,  the  word  of  truth,  the  power  of 
God.  Finally  he  becomes  more  direct,  and  in  one 
of  his  splendid  paradoxes  charges  that,  if  you 
would  make  a  religious  condition  of  mind  to  pre- 
vail, you  must  be  sorrowful  yet  rejoicing,  poor 
yet  making  many  rich,  having  nothing  yet  pos- 
sessing all  things.  Then  those  days  will  come, 
which  St.  Francis  yearned  for,  "when  every  fire- 
side shall  be  a  temple,  and  every  believer  a  priest 
of  God." 

But  how  shall  this  transformation  of  the  na- 
ture be  accomplished?  Kant  himself  admits  that 
it  is  not  by  a  gradual  reformation,  but  by  a  fun- 
damental revolution,  by  a  new  birth.  In  this 
all  religious  teachers  from  Jesus  to  the  street 
preacher  are  in  agreement.  But  whilst  salvation 
is  an  inward  experience  of  the  individual,  the 
new  principle  in  w^hich  it  results  can  be  assured 
only  if  its  supremacy  in  a  community  consti- 
tutes the  king-dom  of  God.  That  is  the  true 
church. 

At  this  point  the  philosopher  fails  us.  In  an 
atmosphere  of  abstract  intellectualism  common 
humanity  will  not  likely  find  stimulus  or  incen- 
tive towards  that  chan<re  which  he  describes  as  a 


THE  FALLACY  IN  THEOLOGY     359 

fundamental  revolution,  and  the  Christian  experi- 
ences as  conversion.  To  the  one  it  is  an  affair  of 
the  reason :  to  the  other  it  is  an  affair  of  the  ima- 
gination, an  emotion,  a  passionate  enthusiasm,  a 
fresh  miracle  each  time  it  occurs. 


(Cfic  Rilicrsi&E  prcs"^ 

CAMBRIDGE   .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .    A 


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